O suffering, sad humanity! O ye afflicted ones, who lie Steeped to the lips in misery, Longing, yet afraid to die, Patient, though sorely tried!
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowRead
Something the heart must have to cherish, Must love and joy and sorrow learn; Something with passion clasp, or perish And in itself to ashes burn.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the necessity of love, joy, and sorrow in creating a meaningful life.
Longfellow's quote reflects the idea that to truly experience life, one must embrace a range of emotions, including love, joy, and sorrow. It suggests that these feelings are essential for personal growth and fulfillment, as they allow us to cherish our experiences. Without passionate emotions, life risks becoming empty, leading to a metaphorical 'burning to ashes' of our experiences.
Themes
LoveEmotionPassionSorrowJoyLife
In practice
Example use cases
During a wedding speech to emphasize the importance of love in a marriage.
More from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
All quotes βThere are moments in life, when the heart is so full of emotion That if by chance it be shaken, or into its depths like a pebble Drops some careless word, it overflows, and its secret, Spilt on the ground like water, can never be gathered together.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowRead
Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowRead
To be seventy years old is like climbing the Alps. You reach a snow-crowned summit, and see behind you the deep valley stretching miles and miles away, and before you other summits higher and whiter, which you may have strength to climb, or may not. Then you sit down and meditate and wonder which it will be.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowRead
God is not dead; nor doth He sleep; ... _x000D_ The wrong shall fail,_x000D_ The right prevail,_x000D_ With peace on earth, good will to men.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowRead
In the long run men hit only what they aim at.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowRead
Similar quotes
To love is to suffer and there can be no love otherwise.
Fyodor DostoevskyRead
We learned we wanted too much. We could only give from the perspective of who we were and what we had. Apart, we were able to see with even greater clarity that we didnβt want to be without each other.
Patti SmithRead
Oh, what a catastrophe, what a maiming of love when it was made personal, merely personal feeling. This is what is the matter with us: we are bleeding at the roots because we are cut off from the earth and sun and stars. Love has become a grinning mockery because, poor blossom, we plucked it from its stem on the Tree of Life and expected it to keep on blooming in our civilized vase on the table.
D. H. LawrenceRead
As many have discovered, it is entirely possible (although not particularly desirable) to love two people with all your heart. It is entirely possible to long for two lives, to feel that one life can't come close to containing it all.
Gabrielle ZevinRead
I saw within Its depth how It conceives_x000D_ _x000D_ All things in a single volume bound by Love_x000D_ _x000D_ of which the universe is the scattered leaves.
Dante AlighieriRead
The moon is setand the Pleiades; Middle ofthe night, time passes by,I lie alone.
SapphoRead