Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Quotes about time

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was American poet. Explore interesting quotes on time.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: 404 quotes24 likes

“Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow book Voices of the Night

St. 7.
A Psalm of Life (1839)
Source: Voices of the Night

“All are architects of Fate,
Working in these walls of Time.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow The Builders

The Builders.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Hyperion http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5436, Bk. III, Ch. IV (1839). <br class="br">Variant: Believe me, every heart has its secret sorrows, which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad. <br class="br">Context: "Ah! this beautiful world!" said Flemming, with a smile. "Indeed, I know not what to think of it. Sometimes it is all gladness and sunshine, and Heaven itself lies not far off. And then it changes suddenly; and is dark and sorrowful, and clouds shut out the sky. In the lives of the saddest of us, there are bright days like this, when we feel as if we could take the great world in our arms and kiss it. Then come the gloomy hours, when the fire will neither burn on our hearths nor in our hearts; and all without and within is dismal, cold, and dark. Believe me, every heart has its secret sorrows, which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad."

“And death, and time shall disappear,—
Forever there, but never here!”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow The Old Clock on the Stairs

The Old Clock on the Stairs, st. 9 (1845).
Context: Never here, forever there,
Where all parting, pain, and care,
And death, and time shall disappear,—
Forever there, but never here!
The horologe of Eternity
Sayeth this incessantly,—
"Forever — never!
Never — forever!"

“It takes less time to do a thing right than to explain why you did it wrong.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow book Voices of the Night

St. 4.
Cf. Andrew Marvell, Upon the Death of Lord Hastings (1649): "Art indeed is long, but life is short".
A Psalm of Life (1839)
Source: Voices of the Night

“Time has laid his hand
Upon my heart, gently, not smiting it,
But as a harper lays his open palm
Upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Golden Legend http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10490/10490-h/10490-h.htm, Pt. IV, The Cloisters (1872).

“There is no greater sorrow
Than to be mindful of the happy time
In misery.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Inferno, canto v, line 121.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

St. 5.
The Day is Done (1845)

“Chorus of the Eumenides: …
Never by lapse of time
The soul defaced by crime
Into its former self returns again;
For every guilty deed
Holds in itself the seed
Of retribution and undying pain.

Never shall be the loss
Restored, till Helios
Hath purified them with his heavenly fires;
Then what was lost is won,
And the new life begun,
Kindled with nobler passions and desires.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Masque of Pandora and Other Poems (1875)