Thomas Wentworth Higginson Quotes
It is no discredit to Walt Whitman that he wrote Leaves of Grass, only that he did not burn it afterwards.
How many lessons of faith and beauty we should lose, if there were no winter in our year!
Great men are rarely isolated mountain-peaks; they are the summits of ranges.
There is certainly no defence or water -proof garment against adverse fortune which is, on the whole, so effectual as an habitual sense of humor.
How much that the world calls selfishness is only generosity with narrow walls,--a too exclusive solicitude to maintain a wife in luxury, or make one's children rich.
What are Raphael's Madonnas but the shadow of a mother's love, fixed in permanent outline forever?
Do not waste a minute - not a second - in trying to demonstrate to others the merits of your performance. If your work does not vindicate itself, you cannot vindicate it.
The most fertile soil does not necessarily produce the most abundant harvest. It is the use we make of our faculties which renders them valuable.
After all, when a thought takes one's breath away, a lesson on grammar seems an impertinence.
That genius is feeble which cannot hold its own before the masterpieces of the world.
In an audience of rough people a generous sentiment always brings down the house. In the tumult of war both sides applaud a heroic deed.
Many persons sigh for death when it seems far off, but the inclination vanishes when the boat upsets, or the locomotive runs off the track, or the measles set it.
Genius is lonely without the surrounding presence of a people to inspire it.
In ancient Boeotia brides were carried home in vehicles whose wheels were burned at the door, in token, that they would never again be needed.
Travelers find virtue in a seeming minority in all other countries, and forget that they have left it in a minority at home.
An easy thing, O Power Divine, To thank thee for these gifts of Thine, For summer's sunshine, winter's snow, For hearts that kindle thoughts that glow.
The bee himself did not evade the schoolboy more than she evaded me, and even at this day I still stand somewhat bewildered, like the boy.
Character shows itself apart from genius as a special thing. The first point of measurement of any man is that of quality.