223 quotes
God makes sech nights, all white an' still,
Fur'z you can look or listen,
Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill,
All silence an' all glisten.
The Biglow Papers (1848)
It is good
To lengthen to the last a sunny mood.
There is no work of genius which has not been the delight of mankind, no word of genius to which the human heart and soul have not sooner or later responded.
Literary Essays, vol. II (1870)
The real doth not clip the poet's wings,—
To win the secret of a weed’s plain heart
Reveals some clue to spiritual things,
And stumbling guess becomes firm-footed art.
Poems (1844)
If there breathe on earth a slave,
Are ye truly free and brave?
If ye do not feel the chain,
When it works a brother's pain,
Are ye not base slaves indeed,
Slaves unworthy to be freed?
Stanzas on Freedom (1843)
In the scales of the destinies brawn will never weigh so much as brain.
On Democracy (1884)
Though the cause of Evil prosper, yet ’tis Truth alone is strong,
And, albeit she wander outcast now, I see around her throng
Troops of beautiful, tall angels, to enshield her from all wrong.
The Present Crisis (1844)
For, of all compositions, he thought that the sonnet
Best repaid all the toil you expended upon it.
Fable for Critics (1848)
If you want peace, the thing you've gut to du
Is jes' to show you're up to fightin', tu.
Who gives himself with his alms feeds three,
Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me.
No man can produce great things who is not thoroughly sincere in dealing with himself.
Literary Essays, vol. II (1870)
An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.
On Democracy (1884)
For she was jes' the quiet kind
Whose naturs never vary,
Like streams that keep a summer mind
Snowhid in Jenooary.
Daily with souls that cringe and plot,
We Sinais climb and know it not.
Things always seem fairer when we look back at them, and it is out of that inaccessible tower of the past that Longing leans and beckons.
Literary Essays, vol. I (1864)
The green grass floweth like a stream
Into the ocean's blue.
All kin' o' smily round the lips
An' teary roun' the lashes.
Both of them mean that Labor has no rights which Capital is bound to respect,—that there is no higher law than human interest and cupidity.
The Election in November 1860 (1860)
Like streams that keep a summer mind
Snow-hid in Jenooary.
The Biglow Papers (1848)
The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinions.
My Study Windows (1871)