15 quotes
The old poets little knew what comfort they could be to a man.
The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896)
Yes'm, old friends is always best, 'less you can catch a new one that's fit to make an old one out of.
The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896)
I'd rather be my honest self
Than any made-up daisy.
In the life of each of us, I said to myself, there is a place remote and islanded, and given to endless regret or secret happiness.
The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896)
The road was new to me, as roads always are, going back.
The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896)
'Tain't worthwhile to wear a day all out before it comes.
The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896)
Tact is after all a kind of mind-reading.
The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896)
The warm sun kissed the earth
To consecrate thy birth,
And from his close embrace
Thy radiant face
Sprang into sight,
A blossoming delight.
Captain Littlepage had overset his mind with too much reading.
The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896)
The thing that teases the mind over and over for years, and at last gets itself put down rightly on paper — whether little or great, it belongs to Literature.
So we die before our own eyes; so we see some chapters of our lives come to their natural end.
The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896)
Your patience may have long to wait,
Whether in little things or great,
But all good luck, you soon will learn,
Must come to those who nobly earn.
Who hunts the hay-field over
Will find the four-leaved clover.
A harbor, even if it is a little harbor, is a good thing, since adventurers come into it as well as go out, and the life in it grows strong, because it takes something from the world, and has something to give in return.
Look bravely up into the sky,
And be content with knowing
That God wished for a buttercup
Just here, where you are growing.
When I was as you are now, towering in the confidence of twenty-one, little did I suspect that I should be at forty-nine, what I now am.
Misattributed