William C. Bryant Quotes

The air was fragrant with a thousand trodden aromatic herbs, with fields of lavender, and with the brightest roses blushing in tufts all over the meadows.

Go forth under the open sky, and list To Nature's teachings.

These struggling tides of life that seem In wayward, aimless course to tend, Are eddies of the mighty stream That rolls to its appointed end.

It is said to be the manner of hypochondriacs to change often their physician.

Hark to that shrill, sudden shout, The cry of an applauding multitude, Swayed by some loud-voiced orator who wields The living mass as if he were its soul!

The moon is at her full, and riding high, Floods the calm fields with light. The airs that hover in the summer sky Are all asleep to-night.

But 'neath yon crimson tree Lover to listening maid might breathe his flame, Nor mark, within its roseate canopy, Her blush of maiden shame.

Autumn, the year's last, loveliest smile.

There is a day of sunny rest For every dark and troubled night; And grief may hide an evening guest, But joy shall come with early light.

The groves were God's first temples.

To him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language.

Self-interest is the most ingenious and persuasive of all the agents that deceive our consciences, while by means of it our unhappy and stubborn prejudices operate in their greatest force.

I shall seeThe hour of death draw near to me,Hope, blossoming within my heart. . . .

Winning isn't everything, but it beats anything in second place.

Difficulty is the nurse of greatness.

Glorious are the woods in their latest gold and crimson.

And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief.

And suns grow meek, and the meek suns grow brief, and the year smiles as it draws near its death.

Difficulty, my brethren, is the nurse of greatness - a harsh nurse, who roughly rocks her foster children into strength and athletic proportion.

I hear the howl of the wind that brings The long drear storm on its heavy wings.

Truth crushed to the earth will rise again!

The rose that lives its little hour Is prized beyone the sculpted flower.

Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste.

The stormy March has come at last, With winds and clouds and changing skies; I hear the rushing of the blast That through the snowy valley flies.

Here the free spirit of mankind, at length, Throws its last fetters off; and who shall place A limit to the giant's unchained strength, Or curb his swiftness in the forward race?

A sculptor wields The chisel, and the stricken marble grows To beauty.

Fairest of all that earth beholds, the hues That live among the clouds, and flush the air, Lingering, and deepening at the hour of dews.

Thine eyes are springs in whose serene And silent waters heaven is seen. Their lashes are the herbs that look On their young figures in the brook.

Pain dies quickly, and lets her weary prisoners go; the fiercest agonies have shortest reign.

Beautiful isles! beneath the sunset skies tall, silver-shafted palm-trees rise, between full orange-trees that shade the living colonade.

The rugged trees are mingling Their flowery sprays in love; The ivy climbs the laurel To clasp the boughs above.

On rolls the stream with a perpetual sigh; The rocks moan wildly as it passes by; Hyssop and wormwood border all the strand, And not a flower adorns the dreary land.

Remorse is virtue's root; its fair increase is fruits of innocence and blessedness.

There is no glory in star or blossom till looked upon by a loving eye; There is no fragrance in April breezes till breathed with joy as they wander by.

Loveliest of lovely things are they, On earth, that soonest pass away. The rose that lives its little hour Is prized beyond the sculptured flower.

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood?

The February sunshine steeps your boughs and tints the buds and swells the leaves within.

Music is not merely a study, it is an entertainment; wherever there is music there is a throng of listeners.

Truth gets well if she is run over by a locomotive, while error dies of lockjaw if she scratches her finger.

Still sweet with blossoms is the year's fresh prime.

A herd of prairie-wolves will enter a field of melons and quarrel about the division of the spoils as fiercely and noisily as so many politicians.

Ah, why Should we, in the world's riper years, neglect God's ancient sanctuaries, and adore Only among the crowd and under roofs That our frail hands have raised?

The little wind-flower, whose just opened eye Is blue as the spring heaven it gazes at.

Features, the great soul's apparent seat.

I grieve for life's bright promise, just shown and then withdrawn.

God hath yoked to guilt her pale tormentor,--misery.

Virtue cannot dwell with slaves, nor reign O'er those who cower to take a tyrant's yoke.

The victory of endurance born.

Ah! never shall the land forget.

Pleasantly, between the pelting showers, the sunshine gushes down.