John Greenleaf Whittier Quotes

Who fathoms the Eternal Thought? Who talks of scheme and plan? The Lord is God! He needeth not The poor device of man.

Others may sing the song. Others may right the wrong.

Once more the liberal year laughs out O'er richer stores than gems or gold: Once more with harvest song and shout Is nature's boldest triumph told.

God's colors all are fast.

Thee lift me, and I lift thee, and together we ascend.

A faint blush melting through the light of thy transparent cheek like a rose-leaf bathed in dew.

As a small businessperson, you have no greater leverage than the truth.

Again the blackbirds sings; the streams Wake, laughing, from their winter dreams, And tremble in the April showers The tassels of the maple flowers.

Before me, even as behind, God is, and all is well.

Love hath never known a law beyond its own sweet will.

Truth is one;
And, in all lands beneath the sun,
Whoso hath eyes to see may see
The tokens of its unity.

I'll lift you and you lift me, and we'll both ascend together.

Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, 'It might have been.

Waking or sleeping, I see a wreck,
And hear a cry from a reeling deck!

Heap high the farmer's wintry hoard! Heap high the golden corn! No richer gift has Autumn poured From out her lavish horn!

Behind the cloud the starlight lurks,
Through showers the sunbeams fall;
For God, who loveth all His works,
Has left His hope with all!

Better heresy of doctrine than heresy of heart.

Beauty seen is never lost, God's colors all are fast.

Up from the sea, the wild north wind is blowing, under the sky's gray arch. Smiling, I watch the shaken elm boughs, knowing It is the wind of March.

What is really momentous and all-important with us is the present, by which the future is shaped and colored.

Nature speaks in symbols and in signs.

And the more you spend in blessing The poor and lonely and sad,
The more of your heart's possessing
Returns to you glad.

Sometimes it seems as if the universe wants to be noticed!!!

The sun that brief December day Rose cheerless over hills of gray, And, darkly circled, gave at noon A sadder light than waning moon.

The Present, the Present is all thou hast
For thy sure possessing;
Like the patriarch's angel hold it fast
Till it gives its blessing.

Autumn, in his leafless bowers, is waiting for the winter's snow.

The simple heart that freely asks in love, obtains.

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

The good is always beautiful, the beautiful is good!

If woman lost us Eden, such As she alone restore it.

To be saved is only this-salvation from our own selfishness.

What does the good ship bear so well? The cocoa-nut with its stony shell, And the milky sap of its inner cell.

I dimly guess, from blessings known, of greater out of sight.

They who wander widest lift No more of beauties' jealous veils, Than they who from their doorways see The miracle of flowers and trees.

The joy that you give to others is the joy that comes back to you

The dreariest spot in all the land to Death they set apart; with scanty grace from Nature's hand, and none from that of Art.

And still we love the evil cause
And of the just effect complain;
We tread upon life's broken laws
And murmur at our self-inflicted pain.

Rest if you must, but never quit.

And close at hand, the basket stood With nuts from brown October's wood. And close at hand, the basket stood With nuts from brown October's wood.

No longer forward or behind
I look in hope or fear,
But grateful, take the good I find,
The best of now and here.

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

I hear the tread of pioneers
Of nations yet to be,
The first low wash of waves where soon
Shall roll a human sea.

God is good and God is light In this faith I rest secure, Evil can but serve the right, Over all shall love endure.

And light is mingled with the gloom, And joy with grief; Divinest compensations come, Through thorns of judgment mercies bloom In sweet relief.

Around the mighty master came
The marvels which his pencil wrought,
Those miracles of power whose fame
Is wide as human thought.

O Time and change! - with hair as gray as was my sire's that winter day, how strange it seems, with so much gone of life and love, to still live on!

From the death of the old the new proceeds, and the life of truth from the death of creeds.

God gives quietness at last.

Here Greek and Roman find themselves alive along these crowded shelves; and Shakespeare treads again his stage, and Chaucer paints anew his age.

But let the good old corn adorn
The hills our fathers trod;
Still let us, for his golden corn,
Send up our thanks to God!

What airs outblown from ferny dells And clover-bloom and sweet brier smells.

Few have borne unconsciously the spell of loveliness.

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

The saddest thing of word or pen, To know the things that might have been.

We shape ourselves the joy or fear
Of which the coming life is made,
And fill our Future's atmosphere
With sunshine or with shade.

Swan flocks of lilies shoreward lying, In sweetness, not in music, dying.

What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye? What calls back the past like the rich pumpkin pie?

Simple duty hath no place for fear.

For still the new transcends the old In signs and tokens manifold; Slaves rise up men; the olive waves, With roots deep set in battle graves!

There's life alone in duty done, And rest alone in striving.

What miracle of weird transforming Is this wild work of frost and light, This glimpse of glory infinite?

Oh, for boyhood's painless play, sleep that wakes in laughing day, health that mocks the doctor's rules, knowledge never learned of schools.

Thanks to Allah, who gives the palm!

Along the river's summer walk,
The withered tufts of asters nod;
And trembles on its arid stalk
the hoar plum of the golden-rod.

One brave deed makes no hero.

And peace unweaponed conquers every wrong!

We faintly hear, we dimly see, In differing phrase we pray; But dim or clear, we own in Him The life, the truth, the way.

Peace hath higher tests of manhood than battle ever knew.

When faith is lost, when honor dies, the man is dead.

All the windows of my heart I open to the day.

And sweet and far as from a star, replied a voice which shall not cease, till drowning all the noise of war, it sings the blessed song of peace

The Fates are just: they give us but our own; Nemesis ripens what our hands have sown.

With silence only as their benediction, God's angels come Where in the shadow of a great affliction, The soul sits dumb!

The still, sad music of humanity.

The hope of all earnest souls must be realized.

A charmed life old goodness hath; the tares may perish, but the grain is not for death.

In kindly showers and sunshine bud The branches of the dull gray wood; Out from its sunned and sheltered nooks The blue eye of the violet looks.

The smile of God is victory.

The child must teach the man.

Who never wins can rarely lose, Who never climbs as rarely falls

If thou of fortune be bereft, and in thy store there be but left two loaves, sell one, and with the dole, buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.

There is religion in everything around us, - a calm and holy religion in the unbreathing things of Nature, which man would do well to imitate.

His daily prayer, far better understood in acts than in words, was simply doing good.

God's providence is not blind, but full of eyes.

Yet, in the maddening maze of things, And tossed by storm and flood, To one fixed trust my spirit clings; I know that God is good!

Press bravely onward! - not in vainYour generous trust in human kind;The good which bloodshed could not gainYour peaceful zeal shall find.

Small leisure have the poor for grief.

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

The green earth sends her incense up. From many a mountain shrine; From folded leaf and dewey cup She pours her sacred wine.

Nothing before, nothing behind; The steps of faith Fall on the seeming void, and find The Rock beneath.

God fills the gaps of human need, Each crisis brings its word and deed.

Man is more than constitutions.

Romance is always young.

Reason's voice and God's, Nature's and Duty's, never are at odds.

This is truth the poet sings ...

For still in mutual sufferance lies
The secret of true living;
Love scarce is love that never knows
The sweetness of forgiving.

Up from the meadows rich with corn, Clear in the cool September morn

The tints of autumn ... a mighty flower garden blossoming under the spell of the enchanter, frost.

And let these altars, wreathed with flowers And piled with fruits, awake again Thanksgivings for the golden hours, The early and the latter rain!

We meet today To thank Thee for the era done, And Thee for the opening one.