John Greenleaf Whittier Quotes (47 quotes)

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John Greenleaf Whittier

John Greenleaf Whittier: 47 quotes 2 likes

Famous John Greenleaf Whittier Quotes

“The joy that you give to others
Is the joy that comes back to you.”

John Greenleaf Whittier

First published in The Educational Monthly of Canada, Volume 24‎ (1901), p. 29
Attributed
Context: Somehow not only for Christmas
But all the long year through,
The joy that you give to others
Is the joy that comes back to you.
And the more you spend in blessing
The poor and lonely and sad,
The more of your heart's possessing
Returns to make you glad.

“Others shall sing the song,
Others shall right the wrong,—
Finish what I begin,
And all I fail of win.”

John Greenleaf Whittier

My Triumph, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Context: Sweeter than any sung
My songs that found no tongue;
Nobler than any fact
My wish that failed of act.

Others shall sing the song,
Others shall right the wrong,—
Finish what I begin,
And all I fail of win.

“Better heresy of doctrine than heresy of heart.”

John Greenleaf Whittier

Mary Garvin, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Who never wins can rarely lose,
Who never climbs as rarely falls.”

John Greenleaf Whittier

To James T. Fields, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on,
And Maud was left in the field alone.
But the lawyers smiled that afternoon,
When he hummed in court an old love-tune.”

John Greenleaf Whittier Maud Muller

Maud Muller (1856)

“The Beauty which old Greece or Rome
Sung, painted, wrought, lies close at home.”

John Greenleaf Whittier

To ———, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

John Greenleaf Whittier Quotes about love

“Life is ever lord of Death
And Love can never lose its own.”

John Greenleaf Whittier

Snow Bound, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“A manly form at her side she saw,
And joy was duty and love was law.
Then she took up her burden of life again,
Saying only, "It might have been."”

John Greenleaf Whittier Maud Muller

Maud Muller (1856)

“All hearts confess the saints elect,
Who, twain in faith, in love agree,
And melt not in an acid sect
The Christian pearl of charity!”

John Greenleaf Whittier

Snow Bound, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“I know not where His islands lift
Their fronded palms in air;
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond His love and care.”

John Greenleaf Whittier

The eternal Goodness, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

John Greenleaf Whittier Quotes about God

“God is and all is well.”

John Greenleaf Whittier

My Birthday', reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare Browning, Pippa Passes.

“God blesses still the generous thought,
And still the fitting word He speeds,
And Truth, at His requiring taught,
He quickens into deeds.”

John Greenleaf Whittier

Channing, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“As yonder tower outstretches to the earth
The dark triangle of its shade alone
When the clear day is shining on its top;
So, darkness in the pathway of man's life
Is but the shadow of God's providence,
By the great Sun of wisdom cast thereon;
And what is dark below is light in heaven.”

John Greenleaf Whittier

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 282

“O, brother man! fold to thy heart thy brother;
where pity dwells, the peace of God is there.”

John Greenleaf Whittier Worship

Worship, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“God's ways seem dark, but, soon or late,
They touch the shining hills of day;
The evil cannot brook delay,
The good can well afford to wait.”

John Greenleaf Whittier

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 282

John Greenleaf Whittier Quotes

“Sweeter than any sung
My songs that found no tongue”

John Greenleaf Whittier

“For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"”

John Greenleaf Whittier Maud Muller

Bret Harte wrote a famous parody of this famous poem, "Mrs. Judge Jenkins" in which the Judge marries Maud, and which he ends with the lines:
Maud soon thought the Judge a bore,
With all his learning and all his lore;
And the Judge would have bartered Maud's fair face
For more refinement and social grace.
If, of all words of tongue and pen,
The saddest are, "It might have been,"
More sad are these we daily see:
"It is, but hadn't ought to be".
Maud Muller (1856)
Context: Alas for maiden, alas for Judge,
For rich repiner and household drudge!
God pity them both! and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall;
For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"

Heartbreaking , Depressing , Sadness , Sad

“The harp at Nature's advent strung
Has never ceased to play;
The song the stars of morning sung
Has never died away.”

John Greenleaf Whittier

The Worship of Nature, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Star , Nature

“Falsehoods which we spurn to-day
Were the truths of long ago.”

John Greenleaf Whittier

Calef in Boston, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Truth

“Perish with him the folly that seeks through evil good.”

John Greenleaf Whittier

Brown of Ossawatomie, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Evil

“He wedded a wife of richest dower,
Who lived for fashion, as he for power.
Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow,
He watched a picture come and go:
And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes
Looked out in their innocent surprise.”

John Greenleaf Whittier Maud Muller

Maud Muller (1856)

Fashion , Wedding

“Yet sometimes glimpses on my sight,
Through present wrong the eternal right;
And, step by step, since time began,
I see the steady gain of man;”

John Greenleaf Whittier

The Chapel of the Hermits, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Time

“Nature speaks in symbols and in signs.”

John Greenleaf Whittier

To Charles Sumner, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Nature

“We seemed to see our flag unfurled,
Our champion waiting in his place
For the last battle of the world,
The Armageddon of the race.”

John Greenleaf Whittier

Rantoul, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

World , Waiting

“So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn
Which once he wore;
The glory from his gray hairs gone
For evermore!”

John Greenleaf Whittier

Ichabod, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Light

“Beauty seen is never lost.”

John Greenleaf Whittier

Sunset on the Bearcamp, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Beauty

“Press bravely onward! — not in vain
Your generous trust in human kind;
The good which bloodshed could not gain
Your peaceful zeal shall find.”

John Greenleaf Whittier

To the Reformers of England, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Peace

“Weary lawyers with endless tongues.”

John Greenleaf Whittier Maud Muller

Maud Muller (1856)

“Each crisis brings its word and deed.”

John Greenleaf Whittier

The lost Occasion, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“We lack but open eye and ear
To find the Orient's marvels here;
The still small voice in autumn's hush,
Yon maple wood the burning bush.”

John Greenleaf Whittier

The Chapel of the Hermits; comparable to Mrs. Browning, Aurora Leigh, Book vii

Autumn

“Again the shadow moveth o'er
The dial-plate of time.”

John Greenleaf Whittier

The New Year, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Time

“The Night is Mother of the Day,
The Winter of the Spring,
And ever upon old Decay
The greenest mosses cling.”

John Greenleaf Whittier A Dream of Summer

A Dream of Summer, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Spring , Winter , Night

“For they the mind of Christ discern
Who lean, like John, upon His breast.”

John Greenleaf Whittier

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 399

Christ

“Maud Muller, on a summer's day,
Raked the meadows sweet with hay.
Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth
Of simple beauty and rustic health.”

John Greenleaf Whittier Maud Muller

Maud Muller (1856)

Health , Beauty , Summer , Wealth

“What is good looking, as Horace Smith remarks, but looking good? Be good, be womanly, be gentle,—generous in your sympathies, heedful of the well-being of all around you; and, my word for it, you will not lack kind words of admiration.”

John Greenleaf Whittier

The Beautiful, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Give lettered pomp to teeth of Time,
So "Bonnie Doon" but tarry;
Blot out the epic’s stately rhyme,
But spare his "Highland Mary!"”

John Greenleaf Whittier

Line on Burns, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Time

“Making their lives a prayer.”

John Greenleaf Whittier

To A. K. On receiving a Basket of Sea-Mosses, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“The windows of my soul I throw
Wide open to the sun.”

John Greenleaf Whittier My Psalm

My Psalm, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Soul , Sun

“Low stir of leaves and dip of oars
And lapsing waves on quiet shores.”

John Greenleaf Whittier

Snow Bound, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“The hope of all who suffer,
The dread of all who wrong.”

John Greenleaf Whittier

The Mantle of St. John de Matha, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Hope , Suffering

“To eat the lotus of the Nile
And drink the poppies of Cathay.”

John Greenleaf Whittier

The Tent on the Beach, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Drink

“Let the thick curtain fall;
I better know than all
How little I have gained,
How vast the unattained.”

John Greenleaf Whittier

My Triumph, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Tradition wears a snowy beard, romance is always young.”

John Greenleaf Whittier

Mary Garvin, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“When faith is lost, when honor dies
The man is dead!”

John Greenleaf Whittier

Ichabod, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Faith , Dead

“Their right(colored Americans), like that of their white fellow-citizens, dates back to the dread arbitrament of war. Their bones whiten every stricken field of the Revolution; their feet tracked with blood the snows of Jersey; their toil built up every fortification south of the Potomac; they shared the famine and nakedness of Valley Forge, and the pestilential horrors of the old Jersey prison ship.”

John Greenleaf Whittier

Quoted in The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution, by William Cooper Nell, p. 339. (1855)

War , Color

“Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,
But spare your country's flag," she said.”

John Greenleaf Whittier

Barbara Frietchie (1863); reported in Diane Ravitch, The American Reader: words that moved a nation (2000), p. 259. The lines are based on an folkloric account of the real Barbara Fritchie, said to have made a similar challenge to Confederate invaders of Maryland during the American Civil War.

Country

“Strike! Thou the Master, we Thy keys,
The anthem of the destinies!
The minor of Thy loftier strain,
Our hearts shall breathe the old refrain —
"Thy will be done!"”

John Greenleaf Whittier

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 513

Heart