Frasi di Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

„Per la maggior parte degli uomini solo la cessazione del miracolo sarebbe miracolosa, e il perpetuo esercizio del potere divino sembra meno meraviglioso di quanto non sarebbe la sua assenza.“

—  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Origine: Citato in Selezione dal Reader's Digest, giugno 1974.

„For after all, the best thing one can do when it is raining is let it rain.“

—  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Variante: The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain.

„Music is the universal language of mankind — poetry their universal pastime and delight.“

—  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, libro Outre-Mer

Outre-Mer.

„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

Hyperion http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5436, Bk. III, Ch. IV (1839).
Variante: Believe me, every heart has its secret sorrows, which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad.
Contesto: "Ah! this beautiful world!" said Flemming, with a smile. "Indeed, I know not what to think of it. Sometimes it is all gladness and sunshine, and Heaven itself lies not far off. And then it changes suddenly; and is dark and sorrowful, and clouds shut out the sky. In the lives of the saddest of us, there are bright days like this, when we feel as if we could take the great world in our arms and kiss it. Then come the gloomy hours, when the fire will neither burn on our hearths nor in our hearts; and all without and within is dismal, cold, and dark. Believe me, every heart has its secret sorrows, which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad."

„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

Part I, section 3.
Origine: Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie (1847)

„My soul is full of longing
For the secret of the Sea,
And the heart of the great ocean
Sends a thrilling pulse through me.“

—  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Secret of the Sea, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

„If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.“

—  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Table-Talk (1857)
Origine: The Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

„Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall“

—  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ballads and Other Poems

Origine: Ballads and Other Poems

„Great is the art of beginning, but greater the art is of ending“

—  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Elegiac Verse, st. 14 (1879).
Contesto: Great is the art of beginning, but greater the art is of ending;
Many a poem is marred by a superfluous verse.

„Round about what is, lies a whole mysterious world of might be, — a psychological romance of possibilities and things that do not happen.“

—  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Table-Talk (1857)
Contesto: Round about what is, lies a whole mysterious world of might be, — a psychological romance of possibilities and things that do not happen. By going out a few minutes sooner or later, by stopping to speak with a friend at a corner, by meeting this man or that, or by turning down this street instead of the other, we may let slip some great occasion of good, or avoid some impending evil, by which the whole current of our lives would have been changed. There is no possible solution to the dark enigma but the one word, "Providence".

„This divine madness enters more or less into all our noblest undertakings.“

—  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Here Longfellow is translating or paraphrasing an expression attributed to a canon of Seville, also quoted as "we shall have a church so great and of such a kind that those who see it built will think we were mad".
Table-Talk (1857)
Contesto: "Let us build such a church, that those who come after us shall take us for madmen," said the old canon of Seville, when the great cathedral was planned. Perhaps through every mind passes some such thought, when it first entertains the design of a great and seemingly impossible action, the end of which it dimly foresees. This divine madness enters more or less into all our noblest undertakings.

„And death, and time shall disappear,—
Forever there, but never here!“

—  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Old Clock on the Stairs

The Old Clock on the Stairs, st. 9 (1845).
Contesto: Never here, forever there,
Where all parting, pain, and care,
And death, and time shall disappear,—
Forever there, but never here!
The horologe of Eternity
Sayeth this incessantly,—
"Forever — never!
Never — forever!"

„There is a Reaper, whose name is Death“

—  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Reaper and the Flowers

The Reaper and the Flowers, st. 1 (1839).
Contesto: There is a Reaper, whose name is Death,
And, with his sickle keen,
He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,
And the flowers that grow between.

„Ah, how wonderful is the advent of spring!“

—  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Origine: Kavanagh: A Tale (1849), Chapter 13.
Contesto: Ah, how wonderful is the advent of spring! — the great annual miracle of the blossoming of Aaron's rod, repeated on myriads and myriads of branches! — the gentle progression and growth of herbs, flowers, trees, — gentle and yet irrepressible, — which no force can stay, no violence restrain, like love, that wins its way and cannot be withstood by any human power, because itself is divine power. If spring came but once in a century, instead of once a year, or burst forth with the sound of an earthquake, and not in silence, what wonder and expectation there would be in all hearts to behold the miraculous change! But now the silent succession suggests nothing but necessity. To most men only the cessation of the miracle would be miraculous and the perpetual exercise of God's power seems less wonderful than its withdrawal would be.

„If spring came but once in a century, instead of once a year, or burst forth with the sound of an earthquake, and not in silence, what wonder and expectation there would be in all hearts to behold the miraculous change!“

—  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Origine: Kavanagh: A Tale (1849), Chapter 13.
Contesto: Ah, how wonderful is the advent of spring! — the great annual miracle of the blossoming of Aaron's rod, repeated on myriads and myriads of branches! — the gentle progression and growth of herbs, flowers, trees, — gentle and yet irrepressible, — which no force can stay, no violence restrain, like love, that wins its way and cannot be withstood by any human power, because itself is divine power. If spring came but once in a century, instead of once a year, or burst forth with the sound of an earthquake, and not in silence, what wonder and expectation there would be in all hearts to behold the miraculous change! But now the silent succession suggests nothing but necessity. To most men only the cessation of the miracle would be miraculous and the perpetual exercise of God's power seems less wonderful than its withdrawal would be.

„I am more afraid of deserving criticism than of receiving it.“

—  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Origine: Kavanagh: A Tale (1849), Chapter 30.
Contesto: I am more afraid of deserving criticism than of receiving it. I stand in awe of my own opinion. The secret demerits of which we alone, perhaps, are conscious, are often more difficult to bear than those which have been publicly censured in us, and thus in some degree atoned for.

„The tragic element in poetry is like Saturn in alchemy, — the Malevolent, the Destroyer of Nature; but without it no true Aurum Potabile, or Elixir of Life, can be made.“

—  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Table-Talk (1857)

„The Laws of Nature are just, but terrible. There is no weak mercy in them. Cause and consequence are inseparable and inevitable.“

—  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Table-Talk (1857)
Contesto: The Laws of Nature are just, but terrible. There is no weak mercy in them. Cause and consequence are inseparable and inevitable. The elements have no forbearance. The fire burns, the water drowns, the air consumes, the earth buries. And perhaps it would be well for our race if the punishment of crimes against the Laws of Man were as inevitable as the punishment of crimes against the Laws of Nature, — were Man as unerring in his judgments as Nature.