Who never climbs as rarely falls.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Success
Somehow, not only for Christmas, But all the long year through, The joy that you give to others, Is the joy that comes back to you. And the more you spend in blessing, The poor and lonely and sad, The more of your heart’s possessing, Returns to you glad.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Christmas, Joy
Here Greek and Roman find themselves alive along these crowded shelves; and Shakespeare treads again his stage, and Chaucer paints anew his age.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Libraries
But beauty seen is never lost,
God
—John Greenleaf Whittier
For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: “It might have been!”
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Sadness
Our toil is sweet with thankfulness, Our burden is our boon; The curse of earth’s gray morning is The blessing of its noon.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Resilience
The simple heart that freely asks in love, obtains.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Work, Prayer
Ah! on Thanksgiving day, when from East and from West,
From North and South, come the pilgrim and guest,
When the gray-haired New Englander sees round his board
The old broken links of affection restored,
When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,
And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before.
What moistens the lips and what brightens the eye?
What calls back the past, like the rich pumpkin pie?
—John Greenleaf Whittier
When faith is lost, when honor dies, the man is dead.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Faith, Man
The tints of autumn—a mighty flower garden, blossoming under the spell of the enchanter, frost.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Autumn
The craven’s fear is but selfishness, like his merriment.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Cowardice, Fear
The windows of my soul I throw
Wide open to the sun.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Light
Of all that Orient lands can vaunt, of marvels with our own competing, the strangest is the Haschish plant, and what will follow on its eating.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Drugs
They tell me, Lucy, thou art dead, that all of thee we loved and cherished has with thy summer roses perished; and left, as its young beauty fled, an ashen memory in its stead.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Grieving, Grief, Bereavement
Clothe with life the weak intent, let me be the thing I meant.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
The steps of faith fall on the seeming void, but find the rock beneath.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Faith
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.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Faith, God, Divinity
To be saved is only this,—salvation from our own selfishness.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Selfishness
We live by Faith; but Faith is not the slave
Of text and legend. Reason’s voice and God’s,
Nature’s and Duty’s, never are at odds.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Belief, Faith
The vain regret that steals above the wreck of squandered hours.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Repentance
His daily prayer, far better understood in acts than in words, was simply doing good.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Goodness
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!
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Aging, Age
Oh, brother man, fold to thy heart thy brother; where pity dwells, the peace of God is there.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Every chain that spirits wear crumbles in the breadth of prayer.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Prayer
Through the dark and stormy night Faith beholds a feeble light Up the blackness streaking; Knowing God’s own time is best, In a patient hope I rest For the full day-breaking.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Faith, Belief
Speak out in acts; the time for words has passed, and only deeds will suffice.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Action
Give fools their gold, and knaves their power;
Let fortune’s bubbles rise and fall;
Who sows a field, or trains a flower,
Or plants a tree, is more than all.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Character
How dwarfed against his manliness she sees the poor pretension, the wants, the aims, the follies, born of fashion and convention!
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Men
Autumn, in his leafless bowers, is waiting for the winter’s snow.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: Autumn
The smile of God is victory.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Topics: One liners, Victory
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- James Russell Lowell American Poet, Critic
- Emily Dickinson American Poet
- Edgar Allan Poe American Poet
- Thomas Bailey Aldrich American Writer
- Josiah Gilbert Holland American Editor, Novelist
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow American Poet
- Marge Piercy American Poet
- Gertrude Stein American Writer
- Theodore Roethke American Poet
- Witter Bynner American Poet
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