Quotessence
Home / Authors / John Greenleaf Whittier
John Greenleaf Whittier

John Greenleaf Whittier Quotes

Poet

Filter quotes by topic

Famous John Greenleaf Whittier Quotes

“With smoking axle hot with speed, with steeds of fire and steam, Wide-waked To-day leaves Yesterday behind him like a dream. Still, from the hurrying train of Life, fly backward far and fast The milestones of the fathers, the landmarks of the past. But human hearts remain unchanged: the sorrow and the sin, The loves and hopes and fears of old, are to our own akin; And if, in tales our fathers told, the songs our mothers sung, Tradition wears a snowy beard, Romance is always young.”

“Quite the ugliest face I ever saw was that of a woman whom the world called beautiful. Through its silver veil the evil and ungentle passions looked out, hideous and hateful. On the other hand, there are faces which the multitude, at first glance, pronounce homely, unattractive and such as "Nature fashions by the gross," which I always recognize with a warm heart-thrill. Not for the world would I have one feature changed; they please me as they are; they are hallowed by kind memories, and are beautiful through their associations.”

“Oh, talk as we may of beauty as a thing to be chiselled from marble or wrought out on canvas, speculate as we may upon its colors and outlines, what is it but an intellectual abstraction, after all? The heart feels a beauty of another kind; looking through the outward environment, it discovers a deeper and more real love-liness.”