Quotes by William Cullen Bryant
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Eloquence is the poetry of prose.
Pain dies quickly, and lets her weary prisoners go; the fiercest agonies have shortest reign.
The little windflower, whose just opened eye is blue as the spring heaven it gazes at.
The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year Of wailing winds and naked woods and meadows brown and sear
And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief. . . .
The right to discuss freely and openly, by speech, by the pen, by the press, all political questions, and to examine and animadvert (speak out) upon all political institutions, is a right so clear and certain, so interwoven with our other liberties, so necessary, in fact to their existence, that without it we must fall at once into depression or anarchy. To say that he who holds unpopular opinions must hold them at the peril of his life, and that, if he expresses them in public, he has only himself to blame if they who disagree with him should rise and put him to death, is to strike at all rights, all liberties, all protection of the laws, and to justify and extenuate all crimes.
And wrath has left its scar -- that fire of hellHas left its frightful scar upon my soul.
To him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language.
And wrath has left its scar -- that fire of hell Has left its frightful scar upon my soul.
The blacks of this region are a cheerful, careless, dirty, race, not hard worked, and in many respects indulgently treated. It is of course the desire of the master that his slaves shall be laborious; on the other hand it is the determination of the slave to lead as easy a life as he can. The master has the power of punishment on his side; the slave, on his, has invincible inclination, and a thousand expedients learned by long practice... Good natured though imperfect and slovenly obedience on one side, is purchased by good treatment on the other.
Remorse is virtue's root; its fair increase are fruits of innocence and blessedness.
I shall see The hour of death draw near to me, Hope, blossoming within my heart,
Truth gets well if she is run over by a locomotive, while error dies of lockjaw if she scratches her finger.
Thine eyes shall see the light of distant skies: Yet, Cole! thy heart shall bear to Europe's strand...
Glorious are the woods in their latest gold and crimson, Yet our full-leaved willows are in the freshest green. Such a kindly autumn, so mercifully dealing With the growths of summer, I never yet have seen.
The sad and solemn night hath yet her multitude of cheerful fires; The glorious host of light walk the dark hemisphere till she retires; All through her silent watches, gliding slow, Her constellations come, and climb the heavens, and go.
Summer wanes; the children are grown;Fun and frolic no more he knows. . . .
These struggling tides of life that seemIn wayward, aimless course to tend,Are eddies of the mighty streamThat rolls to its appointed end.
Difficulty, my brethren, is the nurse of greatness-a harsh nurse, who roughly rocks her foster-children into strength and athletic proportion.
Another hand thy sword shall wield, Another hand the standard wave,...
And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died, The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side,
There's freedom at thy gates and rest For Earth's downtrodden and oppressed,
Gaze on them, till the tears shall dim thy sight, But keep that earlier, wilder image bright.
The stormy March has come at last, With wind, and cloud, and changing skies; I hear the rushing of the blast, That through the snowy valley flies.
Go forth under the open sky, and list To Nature's teachings.
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