Nathaniel Parker Willis Quotations

If there is anything that keeps the mind open to angel visits, and repels the ministry of ill, it is human love.

The innocence that feels no risk and is taught no caution, is more vulnerable than guilt, and oftener assailed.

Gratitude is not only the memory but the homage of the heart- rendered to God for his goodness.

The lily and the rose in her fair face striving for precedence.

He who binds His soul to knowledge, steals the key of heaven.

At present there is no distinction among the upper ten thousand of the city.

Press on! for in the grave there is no work and no device. Press on! while yet you may.

Like Melrose Abbey, large cities should especially be viewed by moonlight.

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.

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

Gentleness is the great point to be obtained in the study of manners.

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

Pitch a lucky man into the Nile, says the Arabian proverb, and he will come up with a fish in his mouth!

We may believe that we shall know each other's forms hereafter; and in the bright fields of the better land call the lost dead to us.

There is no divining-rod whose dip shall tell us at twenty what we shall most relish at thirty.

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.

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.

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

Some noble spirits mistake despair for content.

I knelt, and with the fervor of a lip unused to the cool breath of reason, told my love.

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?

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.

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 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!

The highest triumph of art, is the truest presentation of nature.

The dust is old upon my "sandal-shoon," And still I am a pilgrim; I have roved From wild America to Bosphor's waters, And worshipp'd at innumerable shrines Of beauty; and the painter's art, to me, And sculpture, speak as with a living tongue, And of dead kingdoms, I recall the soul, Sitting amid their ruins.

The value of life deepens incalculably with the privileges of travel.

It is godlike to unloose the spirit, and forget yourself in thought.

Fine taste is an aspect of genius itself, and is the faculty of delicate appreciation, which makes the best effects of art our own.

The Spring is here--the delicate footed May, With its slight fingers full of leaves and flowers, And with it comes a thirst to be away. In lovelier scenes to pass these sweeter hours.

Spring is a beautiful piece of work; and not to be in the country to see it done is the not realizing what glorious masters we are, and how cheerfully, minutely, and unflaggingly the fair fingers of the season broider the world for us.

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.

The Italians say that a beautiful woman by her smiles draws tears from our purse.

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.

Ah me! the world is full of meetings such as this,--a thrill, a voiceless challenge and reply, and sudden partings after!

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 night is made for tenderness,--so still that the low whisper, scarcely audible, is heard like music,--and so deeply pure that the fond thought is chastened as it springs and on the lip made holy.

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!

There they stand, the innumerable stars, shining in order like a living hymn, written in light.

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

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

Temptation hath a music for all ears.

Flirtation is a circulating library, in which we seldom ask twice for the same volume.

Blessed are the joymakers.

How like a mounting devil in the heart rules the unreined ambition.

It is the month of June, The month of leaves and roses, When pleasant sights salute the eyes And pleasant scents the noses.

Your love in a cottage is hungry, Your vine is a nest for flies- Your milkmaid shocks the Graces, And simplicity talks of pies! You lie down to your shady slumber And wake with a bug in your ear, And your damsel that walks in the morning Is shod like a mountaineer.

One lamp — thy mother’s love — amid the stars Shall lift its pure flame changeless, and before The throne of God, burn through eternity - Holy — as it was lit and lent thee here.

Vulgarity is more obvious in satin than in homespun.

The soul of man createth its own destiny.

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.

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.

The taste forever refines in the study of women.

Wisdom, sits alone, topmost in heaven: she is its light, its God; and in the heart of man she sits as high, though groveling minds forget her oftentimes, seeing but this world's idols.

The smallest pebble in the well of truth has its peculiar meaning, and will stand when man's best monuments have passed away.

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

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

And mad ambition trumpeteth to all.

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

One gets, sensitive about losing mornings after getting a little used to them with living in a country. Each one of these endlessly varied daybreaks is an opera but once performed.

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

A lamp is lit in woman's eye; that souls, else lost on earth, remember angels by.