“You sang far better than you knew; the songs
That for your listeners’ hungry hearts sufficed
Still live,—but more than this to you belongs:
You sang a race from wood and stone to Christ.”
O Black and Unknown Bards, st. 6.
Fifty Years and Other Poems (1917)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
James Weldon Johnson 23
writer and activist 1871–1938Related quotes
The following information is from the following site: http://pt.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talento , the fourth entry, which gives the citation as (( Henry van Dyke quoted in "Handicapped Individuals Services and Training Act: hearing before the Subcommittee on Select Education of the Committee on Education and Labor, House of Representatives, Ninety-seventh Congress, second session, on HR 6820 … hearing held in St. Paul, Minn., and Loretto, Minn. on September 2, 1982. "-. 223 Page, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Education and Labor. Subcommittee on Select Education - USGPO, 1982 - 257 pages ))
Quoted by Tor Dahl in the document cited https://hdl.handle.net/2027/pur1.32754076335276?urlappend=%3Bseq=229.
A very similar quote appears in an essay entitled "Do What You Can" by "Little Home Body" in the The Phrenological Journal and Life Illustrated, Volumes 62-63 (August 1876): "The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there but those that sang best" but states "I know not who said those beautiful words"
However, the quote may have been misattributed to Henry Van Dyke. In "The Two Vocations or the sisters of mercy at home" by Elizabeth Charles (1858) p.34 the following appears: "'Dear Jean', she said,'the woods would be very silent if no bird sang but those that sing best' "
Attributed
“And when I first saw you I first loved you
With a song that I sang to the fire in your eyes”
"Lion In The Winter" on Southbound (1975) · Performance with Linda Ronstadt http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ya2dSRcqLBE
Context: And when I first saw you I first loved you
With a song that I sang to the fire in your eyes
But somebody told you that it wouldn't be easy
And you carried that lie for the devil to sing Some sail rivers deep and muddy some sail rivers clear and cold
But the river that I'm sailin' goes to sea
And sometimes I do grow weary sometimes I feel old
And sometimes I wonder if you think of me
“Believe me, you will find more lessons in the woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you what you cannot learn from masters.”
Experto crede: aliquid amplius invenies in silvis, quam in libris. Ligna et lapides docebunt te, quod a magistris audire non possis.
Epistola CVI, sect. 2; translation from Edward Churton The Early English Church ([1840] 1841) p. 324
85
The Gardener http://www.spiritualbee.com/love-poems-by-tagore/ (1915)
Context: Who are you, reader, reading my poems an hundred years hence?
I cannot send you one single flower from this wealth of the spring, one single streak of gold from yonder clouds.
Open your doors and look abroad.
From your blossoming garden gather fragrant memories of the vanished flowers of an hundred years before.
In the joy of your heart may you feel the living joy that sang one spring morning, sending its glad voice across a hundred years.
“The woods would be quiet if no bird sang but the one that sang best.”
The following information is from the following site: http://pt.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talento , the fourth entry, which gives the citation as (( Henry van Dyke quoted in "Handicapped Individuals Services and Training Act: hearing before the Subcommittee on Select Education of the Committee on Education and Labor, House of Representatives, Ninety-seventh Congress, second session, on HR 6820 … hearing held in St. Paul, Minn., and Loretto, Minn. on September 2, 1982. "-. 223 Page, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Education and Labor. Subcommittee on Select Education - USGPO, 1982 - 257 pages ))
Quoted by Tor Dahl in the document cited https://hdl.handle.net/2027/pur1.32754076335276?urlappend=%3Bseq=229.
A very similar quote appears in an essay entitled "Do What You Can" by "Little Home Body" in the The Phrenological Journal and Life Illustrated, Volumes 62-63 (August 1876): "The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there but those that sang best" but states "I know not who said those beautiful words"
However, the quote may have been misattributed to Henry Van Dyke. In "The Two Vocations or the sisters of mercy at home" by Elizabeth Charles (1858) p.34 the following appears: "'Dear Jean', she said,'the woods would be very silent if no bird sang but those that sing best' "
Attributed
Variant: Use what talent you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best.
Source: Poems (1898), Rhymes And Rhythms, XV
Dry Your Eyes, co-written with Robbie Robertson
Song lyrics, Beautiful Noise (1976)