John Greenleaf Whittier Quotes
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Few have borne unconsciously the spell of loveliness.
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Let the thick curtain fall;I better know than allHow little I have gained,How vast the unattained.
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Oh, for boyhood's painless play, sleep that wakes in laughing day, health that mocks the doctor's rules, knowledge never learned of schools.
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As a small businessperson, you have no greater leverage than the truth.
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Man is more than constitutions.
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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.
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The child must teach the man.
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Waking or sleeping, I see a wreck, And hear a cry from a reeling deck!
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Freedom's soil hath only place For a free and fearless race!
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Before me, even as behind, God is, and all is well.
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Somewhat of goodness, something true From sun and spirit shining through All faiths, all worlds, as through the dark Of ocean shines the lighthouse spark, Attests the presence everywhere Of love and providential care.
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For all sad words of tongue and pen, The saddest are these, 'It might have been'.
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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.
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Others may sing the song. Others may right the wrong.
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What, my soul, was thy errand here? Was it mirth or ease, Or heaping up dust from year to year? "Nay, none of these!" Speak, soul, aright in His holy sight, Whose eye looks still And steadily on thee through the night; "To do His will!
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Time is hastening on, and we What our fathers are shall be,-- Shadow-shapes of memory! Joined to that vast multitude Where the great are but the good.
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Leaning on Him, make with reverent meekness His own thy will.
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Around the mighty master came The marvels which his pencil wrought, Those miracles of power whose fame Is wide as human thought.
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The saddest thing of word or pen, To know the things that might have been.
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Beneath the winter's snow lie germs of summer flowers.
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Nature eschews regular lines; she does not shape her lines by a common model. Not one of Eve's numerous progeny in all respects resembles her who first culled the flowers of Eden. To the infinite variety and picturesque inequality of nature we owe the great charm of her uncloying beauty.
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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!
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the joy that you give to others is the joy that comes back to you
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We search the world for truth; we cull The good, the pure, the beautiful, From all old flower fields of the soul; And, weary seeker of the best, We come back laden from out quest, To find that all the sages said Is in the Book our mothers read.
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Despair is infidelity and death.
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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.
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So all night long the storm roared on: The morning broke without a sun; In tiny spherule traced with lines Of Nature’s geometric signs, In starry flake, and pellicle, All day the hoary meteor fell; And, when the second morning shone, We looked upon a world unknown, On nothing we could call our own. Around the glistening wonder bent The blue walls of the firmament, No cloud above, no earth below,— A universe of sky and snow!
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And light is mingled with the gloom, And joy with grief; Divinest compensations come, Through thorns of judgment mercies bloom In sweet relief.
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And let these altars, wreathed with flowers And piled with fruits, awake again Thanksgivings for the golden hours, The early and the latter rain!
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A felon's cell-- The fittest earthly type of hell!
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