Darcy > Darcy's Quotes

“[T]hat old September feeling, left over from school days, of summer passing, vacation nearly done, obligations gathering, books and football in the air ... Another fall, another turned page: there was something of jubilee in that annual autumnal beginning, as if last year's mistakes had been wiped clean by summer.”
― Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose

“One rose leaf, falling from an enormous height, like a little parachute dropped from an invisible balloon, turns, flutters waveringly.”
― Virginia Woolf, The String Quartet

“The green garden, moonlit pool, lemons, lovers, and fish are all dissolved in the opal sky, across which, as the horns are joined by trumpets and supported by clarions there rise white arches firmly planted on marble pillars...”
― Virginia Woolf, The String Quartet

“I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and I look at it, until it begins to shine.”
― Emily Dickinson

“My best Acquaintances are those
With Whom I spoke no Word”
― Emily Dickinson

“Think naught a trifle, though it small appear:
Small sands the mountain, moments make the year,
And trifles life.
”
― Edward Young

“But a Book is only the Heart's Portrait- every Page a Pulse.”
― Emily Dickinson

“Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“The Day is Done

The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.

I see the lights of the village
Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me
That my soul cannot resist:

A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.

Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.

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

For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life's endless toil and endeavor;
And to-night I long for rest.

Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start;

Who, through long days of labor,
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.

Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer.

Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.

And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems

“Sit in reverie and watch the changing color of the waves
that break upon the idle seashore of the mind.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Kind hearts are the gardens, Kind thoughts are the roots, Kind words are the flowers, Kind deeds are the fruits, Take care of your garden And keep out the weeds, Fill it with sunshine, Kind words, and Kind deeds.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“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, Voices of the Night

“Resolve, and thou art free.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Flower-de-Luce, and the Masque of Pandora

“Stay, stay at home, my heart and rest;
Home-keeping hearts are happiest.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“The leaves of memory seemed to make A mournful rustling in the dark”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Then followed that beautiful season... Summer....
Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape
Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“How Beautiful is the rain!
After the dust and heat,
In the broad and fiery street,
In the narrow lane,
How beautiful is the rain!

How it clatters along the roofs,
Like the tramp of hoofs!
How it gushes and struggles out
From the throat of the overflowing spout!

Across the window-pane
It pours and pours;
And swift and wide,
With a muddy tide,
Like a river down the gutter roars
The rain, the welcome rain!

-"Rain in Summer”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Great is the art of beginning.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Look, then, into thine heart, and write!
Yes, into Life's deep stream!
All forms of sorrow and delight,
All solemn Voices of the Night,
That can soothe thee, or affright, -
Be these henceforth thy theme.

(excerpt from "Voices of the Night")”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“I hear the wind among the trees playing the celestial symphonies.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“The holiest of all holidays are those
Kept by ourselves in silence and apart;
The secret anniversaries of the heart.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Complete Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“The morning pouring everywhere, its golden glory on the air.”
― Henry Wadsworth Logfellow

“Look, then, into thine heart, and write!”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Voices of the Night, and Other Poems

“The brown autumn came. Out of doors, it brought to the fields the prodigality of the golden harvest, —to the forest, revelations of light,⁠—and to the sky, the sharp air, the morning mist, the red clouds at evening. Within doors, the sense of seclusion, the stillness of closed and curtained windows, musings by the fireside, books, friends, conversation, and the long, meditative evenings. To the farmer, it brought surcease of toil,⁠—to the scholar, that sweet delirium of the brain which changes toil to pleasure. It brought the wild duck back to the reedy marshes of the south; it brought the wild song back to the fervid brain of the poet. Without, the village street was paved with gold; the river ran red with the reflection of the leaves. Within, the faces of friends brightened the gloomy walls; the returning footsteps of the long-absent gladdened the threshold; and all the sweet amenities of social life again resumed their interrupted reign.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Kavanagh

“Snow-flakes
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Out of the bosom of the Air,
      Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
      Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
            Silent, and soft, and slow
            Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take
      Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
      In the white countenance confession,
            The troubled sky reveals
            The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the air,
      Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
      Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
            Now whispered and revealed
            To wood and field.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“It is true, that it is not at all necessary to love many books, in order to love them much.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,
And all the sweet serenity of books”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven,
Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie

“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

“Write me of hope and love, and hearts that endured.”
― Emily Dickinson