Literary Birthday – 27 February – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born 27 February 1807 and 24 March 1882.

Nine Quotes

1. In character, in manner, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity.
2. Every heart has its secret sorrows which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad.
3. Into each life some rain must fall.
4. The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well; and doing well whatever you do, without a thought of fame.
5. 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.
6. We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
7. The highest exercise of imagination is not to devise what has no existence, but rather to perceive what really exists, though unseen by the outward eye–not creation, but insight.
8. Great is the art of beginning, but greater the art is of ending.
9. Music is the universal language of mankind.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include Paul Revere’s Ride, The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. He was also the first American to translate Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, and was one of the five Fireside Poets.

Source for image: Albert Southworth, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons   https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Henry_Wadsworth_Longfellow_MET_37.14.31.jpg

 by Amanda Patterson

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