Henry Wadsworth Longfellow cytaty

strona 5

„Statki, które mijają się nocą,
w przelocie do siebie coś mówią.
Daleki znak, syreny zew,
co znów w ciemnościach się gubią.
Tak i my w życiu oceanie
mówimy, a ktoś nas słyszy,
Spojrzenie tylko, tylko głos,
tylko znak – potem znów ciemność i cisza.”

„Miłość chroni przed zimnem lepiej niż najcieplejszy płaszcz.”

„Życie jest jak francuski wierszyk; ma kształt doskonały tylko wtedy, gdy męskie rymy przeplata z żeńskimi.”

„Wlej czarodziejstwo głosu kobiety.”

„Muzyka jest uniwersalnym językiem rodzaju ludzkiego.”

„W końcu kiedy pada deszcz, najlepsze, co można zrobić, to nie robić nic – niech sobie pada.”

„Duma mniej wartą od dzieła!”

„Nie ma nic świętszego w tym naszym życiu niż pierwsze dotknięcie miłości, pierwszy trzepot jej jedwabnych skrzydeł.”

„Wiele utworów niszczy zbyteczna ilość linijek.”

„O, jakie to wspaniałe uczucie trzymać dłoń starego przyjaciela!”

„Bohaterem bądź w walk noc.”

„Rzeczą wzniosłą jest przyjmować cierpienie z odwagą.”

„Życie prawdą!”

„Miłość w każdym sercu kobiecym pragnie mieć wszystko, a nie cząstkę; to, według planu Natury, jest dla niej ważniejsze niż ambicja dla mężczyzny, to jej światło, jej życie, jej powietrze, których alternatywą jest tylko śmierć.”

„Wy, co wierzycie w miłość, cierpiącą z nadzieją i wiarą,
Wy, co wierzycie w piękność i moc poświęcenia kobiety.”

„Oceniamy się zwykle na podstawie tego, czego chcielibyśmy dokonać, ale inni oceniają nas zgodnie z tym, czego naprawdę dokonaliśmy.”

„Ten, kto szanuje samego siebie, nie obawia się innych, nosi kolczugę, której nikt nie może przebić.”

“Books are sepulchres of thought.”

“And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night.”

“Thy fate is the common fate of all;
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.”

“Thus, seamed with many scars
Bursting these prison bars,
Up to its native stars
My soul ascended!
There from the flowing bowl
Deep drinks the warrior's soul,
Skoal! to the Northland! skoal!
—Thus the tale ended.”

“And now, my classmates; ye remaining few
That number not the half of those we knew,
Ye, against whose familiar names not yet
The fatal asterisk of death is set,
Ye I salute!”

“Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution,
She lives whom we call dead.”

“Standing, with reluctant feet,
Where the brook and river meet,
Womanhood and childhood fleet!”

“We often excuse our own want of philanthropy by giving the name of fanaticism to the more ardent zeal of others.”

“Thus departed Hiawatha,
Hiawatha the Beloved,
In the glory of the sunset,
In the purple mists of evening,
To the regions of the home-wind,
Of the Northwest-Wind, Keewaydin,
To the Islands of the Blessed,
To the Kingdom of Ponemah,
To the Land of the Hereafter!”

“And as she looked around, she saw how Death the consoler,
Laying his hand upon many a heart, had healed it forever.”

“Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.”

“Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee,
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,
Are all with thee,—are all with thee!”

“Sail forth into the sea of life,
O gentle, loving, trusting wife,
And safe from all adversity
Upon the bosom of that sea
Thy comings and thy goings be!
For gentleness and love and trust
Prevail o'er angry wave and gust;
And in the wreck of noble lives
Something immortal still survives.”

“I feel a kind of reverence for the first books of young authors. There is so much aspiration in them, so much audacious hope and trembling fear, so much of the heart's history, that all errors and short-comings are for a while lost sight of in the amiable self-assertion of youth.”

“God sent his Singers upon earth
With songs of sadness and of mirth,
That they might touch the hearts of men,
And bring them back to heaven again.”

“But the great Master said, "I see
No best in kind, but in degree;
I gave a various gift to each,
To charm, to strengthen, and to teach.”

“O holy trust! O endless sense of rest!
Like the beloved John
To lay his head upon the Saviour's breast,
And thus to journey on!”

“Doubtless criticism was originally benignant, pointing out the beauties of a work, rather than its defects. The passions of men have made it malignant, as the bad heart of Procrustes turned the bed, the symbol of repose, into an instrument of torture.”

“Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!”

“The grave itself is but a covered bridge,
Leading from light to light, through a brief darkness!”

“Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
"Life is but an empty dream!"
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.”

“In the long, sleepless watches of the night,
A gentle face — the face of one long dead —
Looks at me from the wall, where round its head
The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light.”

“Sorrow and silence are strong, and patient endurance is godlike.”

“The prayer of Ajax was for light.”

“Stars of the summer night!
Far in yon azure deeps,
Hide, hide your golden light!
She sleeps!
My lady sleeps!”

“I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.”

“Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day's occupation,
That is known as the Children's Hour.”

“There is no flock, however watched and tended,
But one dead lamb is there!
There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended,
But has one vacant chair!”

“Hold the fleet angel fast until he bless thee.”