John Greenleaf Whittier
John Greenleaf Whittier
John Greenleaf Whittierwas an American Quaker poet and advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States. Frequently listed as one of the Fireside Poets, he was influenced by the Scottish poet Robert Burns. Whittier is remembered particularly for his anti-slavery writings as well as his book Snow-Bound...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth17 December 1807
CountryUnited States of America
heart doctrine heresy
Better heresy of doctrine than heresy of heart.
may goodness grain
A charmed life old goodness hath; the tares may perish, but the grain is not for death.
peaceful kind bloodshed
Press bravely onward! - not in vainYour generous trust in human kind;The good which bloodshed could not gainYour peaceful zeal shall find.
sleep wrecks waking
Waking or sleeping, I see a wreck, And hear a cry from a reeling deck!
time memories father
Time is hastening on, and we What our fathers are shall be,-- Shadow-shapes of memory! Joined to that vast multitude Where the great are but the good.
sweet persuasion crisis
It is well for us if we have learned to listen to the sweet persuasion of the Beatitudes, but there are crises in all lives which require also the emphatic "Thou shalt not" of the decalogue which the founders wrote on the gateposts of their commonwealth.
truth eye land
Truth is one; And, in all lands beneath the sun, Whoso hath eyes to see may see The tokens of its unity.
inspirational-sports never-quit inspirational-athlete
Rest if you must, but never quit.
flower sunshine woods
Round the boles of the pine-wood the ground-laurel creeps, Unkissed of the sunshine, unbaptized of showers, With buds scarcely swelled, which should burst into flowers!
wisdom children past
Children have neither past nor future - they rejoice in the present.
truth children inquiry
Truth should be the first lesson of the child and the last aspiration of manhood; for it has been well said that the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making of it, the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature.
meekness
Leaning on Him, make with reverent meekness His own thy will.
eye night dust
What, my soul, was thy errand here? Was it mirth or ease, Or heaping up dust from year to year? "Nay, none of these!" Speak, soul, aright in His holy sight, Whose eye looks still And steadily on thee through the night; "To do His will!
men constitution
Man is more than constitutions.