My Lost Youth, refrain (1858), quoting Olaus Sirma
Source: The Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Just at the age 'twixt boy and youth,
When thought is speech, and speech is truth.”
Canto II, introduction.
Marmion (1808)
On death and the nightly resurrection of the slain on Valhal, Ch. 2
Space Chantey (1968)
Context: Death is for a long time. Those of shallow thought say that it is forever. There is, at least, a long night of it. There is the forgetfulness and the loss of identity. The spirit, even as the body, is unstrung and burst and scattered. One goes down to death, and it leaves a mark on one forever.
“An aphorism is the last link in a long chain of thought.”
Ein Aphorismus ist der letzte Ring einer langen Gedankenkette.
Source: Aphorisms (1880/1893), p. 19.
Saturae of Juvenal (Cambridge University Press, [1905] 1931) p. xi.
The Humanist interview (2012)
Context: I always thought that "humanist" was a good word long before I understood that anyone thought it was a bad word. It seems to me that it means you believe in the great potential and the best of human beings, so I didn’t have to overcome anything to accept this award; it seemed an unmitigated honor. And since the ultra-right wing has tried so hard to make it a bad word— “humanist” has been demonized in much the same way that the word “feminist” has — it seemed especially important to identify as humanist and support humanist groups.
“As long as you think the problem is out there, that very thought is the problem”
“I thought that after such a long time of not letting her be with me.”
I would like to bring her back into my life.
The Guardian (August 2003) A time for happiness http://www.theguardian.com/film/2003/aug/16/edinburghfilmfestival.
“I sat there for a long time, and thought about a lot of things.”
1990s, The Rum Diary (1998)
Context: I sat there for a long time, and thought about a lot of things. Foremost among them was the suspicion that my strange and ungovernable instincts might do me in before I had a chance to get rich. No matter how much I wanted those things that I needed money to buy, there was some devilish current pushing me off in another direction — toward anarchy, poverty and craziness. That maddening delusion that a man can lead a decent life without hiring himself out as a Judas goat.
“Thought is only a gleam in the midst of a long night. But it is this gleam which is everything”
Source: The Value of Science (1905), Ch. 11: Science and Reality
Context: All that is not thought is pure nothingness; since we can think only thought and all the words we use to speak of things can express only thoughts, to say there is something other than thought, is therefore an affirmation which can have no meaning.
And yet—strange contradiction for those who believe in time—geologic history shows us that life is only a short episode between two eternities of death, and that, even in this episode, conscious thought has lasted and will last only a moment. Thought is only a gleam in the midst of a long night. But it is this gleam which is everything.<!--p.142
“It is thought that women inspire by their beauty; more often they do so by their longings.”
Source: A Time in Rome (1960), Ch. IV, p. 132
