Nathaniel Parker Willis Quotes - Page 2

Nature has thrown a veil of modest beauty over maidenhood and moss-roses.

T is the work of many a dark hour, many a prayer, to bring the heart back from an infant gone.

O, when the heart is, full, when bitter thoughts come crowding thickly up for utterance, and the poor common words of courtesy are such a very mockery, how much the bursting heart may pour itself in prayer!

A flirt is like a dipper attached to a hydrant; every one is at liberty to drink from it, but no one desires to carry it away.

The rain is playing its soft pleasant tune fitfully on the skylight, and the shade of the fast-flying clouds across my book passed with delicate change.

The expressive word "quiet" defines the dress, manners, bow, and even physiognomy of every true denizen of St. James and Bond street.

I love to go and mingle with the young In the gay festal room--when every heart Is beating faster than the merry tune, And their blue eyes are restless, and their lips Parted with eager joy, and their round cheeks Flush'd with the beautiful motion of the dance.

How beautiful it is for a man to die Upon the walls of Zion! to be called Like a watch-worn and weary sentinel, To put his armour off, and rest in heaven!

Youth is beautiful; its friendship is precious; the intercourse with it is a purifying release from the worn and stained harness of older life.

Of dead kingdoms I recall the soul, sitting amid their ruins

The soul of man createth its own destiny of power; and as the trial is intenser here, his being hath a nobler strength in heaven.

The position you hold and the work you are now doing.

Nature's noblemen are everywhere,--in town and out of town, gloved and rough-handed, rich and poor. Prejudice against a lord, because he is a lord, is losing the chance of finding a good fellow, as much as prejudice against a ploughman because he is a ploughman.

The children of the poor are so apt to look as if the rich would have been over-blest with such! Alas for the angel capabilities, interrupted so soon with care, and with after life so sadly unfulfilled.

Maturity is most rapid in the low latitudes, where pineapples and women most do thrive.

The sin forgiven by Christ in HeavenBy man is cursed alway.

But he who never sins can little boast Compared to him who goes and sins no more!

I'm weary of my lonely but And of its blasted tree, The very lake is like my lot, So silent constantly-- I've liv'd amid the forest gloom Until I almost fear-- When will the thrilling voices come My spirit thirsts to hear?

There is a gentle element, and man may breathe it with a calm, unruffled soul, and drink its living waters, till his heart is pure; and this is human happiness.

I have unlearned contempt; it is a sin that is engendered earliest in the soul, and doth beset it like a poison worm feeding on all its beauty.

The perfect world, by Adam trod, Was the first temple--built by God-- His fiat laid the corner stone, And heaved its pillars, one by one.

Some noble spirits mistake despair for content.

The ear in man and beast is an evidence of blood and high breeding.

There is to me a daintiness about early flowers that touches me like poetry. They blow out with such a simple loveliness among the common herbs of pastures, and breathe their lives so unobtrusively, like hearts whose beatings are too gentle for the world.

If e'er I win a parting token, 'Tis something that has lost its power-- A chain that has been used and broken, A ruin'd glove, a faded flower; Something that makes my pleasure less, Something that means--forgetfulness.