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
Sit in reverie and watch the changing color of the waves that break upon the idle seashore of the mind.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote invites contemplation and mindfulness, suggesting we observe the thoughts and emotions that arise like waves on a shore.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's quote emphasizes the importance of introspection and the fluid nature of our thoughts. By visualizing the mind as a seashore where waves continuously break, it encourages us to take a moment to pause, reflect, and appreciate the transient nature of our mental experiences and emotions, allowing us to gain insight and clarity amidst life's chaos.
Themes
MindfulnessReverieThoughtsIntrospectionWaves
In practice
Example use cases
In a meditation workshop, to encourage participants to observe their thoughts.
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
The normal is what you find but rarely. The normal is an ideal. It is a picture that one fabricates of the average characteristics of men, and to find them all in a single man is hardly to be expected.
W. Somerset MaughamRead
The United States is just now the oldest country in the world, there always is an oldest country and she is it, it is she who is the mother of the twentieth century civilization. She began to feel herself as it just after the Civil War. And so it is a country the right age to have been born in and the wrong age to live in.
Gertrude SteinRead
Planning ahead is a measure of class. The rich and even the middle class plan for future generations, but the poor can plan ahead only a few weeks or days.
Gloria SteinemRead
When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.
Jiddu KrishnamurtiRead
The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature. --as quoted in THE RIVER OF WINGED DREAMS
Abraham LincolnRead
Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which children are tortured. But we can reduce the number of tortured children.
Albert CamusRead