Thomas Wentworth Higginson Quotes

Quotes about:

Babies Children Genius Home Spring Summer Winter

The first wild-flower of the year is like land after sea.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Flower, Years, Sea

Thomas Wentworth Higginson (2007). “Outdoor Studies, Poems”, p.59, Reprint Services Corporation

47 Copy quote
To be really cosmopolitan a man must be at home even in his own country.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Country, Home, Country Love

Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1880). “Short Studies of American Authors”

24 Copy quote
How many lessons of faith and beauty we should lose, if there were no winter in our year!

Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Winter, Years, Lessons

Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1863). “Out-door Papers”, p.239

11 Copy quote
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.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Intelligence, Doe, Use

7 Copy quote
It is no discredit to Walt Whitman that he wrote Leaves of Grass, only that he did not burn it afterwards.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Leaves Of Grass, Grass, Walt

Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1871). “Atlantic Essays”, p.44

14 Copy quote
Great men are rarely isolated mountain-peaks; they are the summits of ranges.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Humor, Men, Hiking

Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1871). “Atlantic Essays”, p.18

9 Copy quote
Originality is simply a pair of fresh eyes.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Eye, Creating, Pairs

8 Copy quote
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.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Work, Trying, Waste

Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1871). “Atlantic Essays”, p.84

9 Copy quote
All... religions show the same disparity between belief and practice, and each is safe till it tries to exclude the rest. Test each sect by its best or its worst as you will, by its high-water mark of virtue or its low-water mark of vice. But falsehood begins when you measure the ebb of any other religion against the flood-tide of your own. There is a noble and a base side to every history.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Religious, Practice, Water

Thomas Wentworth HIGGINSON (1872). “The Sympathy of Religions; an Address Delivered ... February 6, 1870”, p.18

6 Copy quote
Noble discontent is the path to heaven.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Inspirational, Heaven, Noble

10 Copy quote
But days even earlier than these, in April, have a charm, — even days that seem raw and rainy, when the sky is dull and a bequest of March - wind lingers, chasing the squirrel from the tree and the children from the meadows. There is a fascination in walking through these bare early woods, – there is such a pause of preparation, winter's work is so cleanly and thoroughly done. Everything is taken down and put away.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Summer, Spring, Taken

"The Procession of the Flowers: And Kindred Papers".

9 Copy quote
Fields are won by those who believe in the winning.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Believe, Winning, Fields

Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1871). “Atlantic Essays”, p.68

8 Copy quote
Nothing can hide from me the conviction that an immortal soul needs for its sustenance something more than visiting, and gardening, and novel-reading, and crochet-needle, and the occasional manufacture of sponge cake.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Reading, Cake, Soul

Thomas Wentworth HIGGINSON (1854). “Woman and her Wishes, etc. ... Second edition, with an appendix”, p.7

7 Copy quote
What instruction the baby brings to the mother!

Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Mother, Baby, Instruction

Thomas Wentworth Higginson (2007). “Outdoor Studies, Poems”, p.237, Reprint Services Corporation

8 Copy quote
In our methodical American life, we still recognize some magic in summer. Most persons at least resign themselves to being decently happy in June. They accept June. They compliment its weather. They complain of the earlier months as cold, and so spend them in the city; and they complain of the later months as hot, and so refrigerate themselves on some barren sea-coast. God offers us yearly a necklace of twelve pearls; most men choose the fairest, label it June, and cast the rest away.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Summer, Men, Weather

Thomas Wentworth Higginson (2007). “Outdoor Studies, Poems”, p.55, Reprint Services Corporation

9 Copy quote
Lavish thousands of dollars on your baby clothes, and after all the child is prettiest when every garment is laid aside. That becoming nakedness, at least, may adorn the chubby darling of the poorest home.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Baby, Nature, Children

Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1873). “Oldport Days”, p.218

8 Copy quote
Life is as inexorable as the sea.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Sea, Water, Life Is

Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1900). “Studies in romance”

5 Copy quote
The test of an author is not to be found merely in the number of his phrases that pass current in the corner of newspapers... but in the number of passages that have really taken root in younger minds.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Taken, Writing, Roots

Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1885). “Margaret Fuller Ossoli”, p.289, Ardent Media

8 Copy quote
There are no days in the whole round year more delicious than those which often come to us in the latter half of April... The sun trembles in his own soft rays... The grass in the meadow seems all to have grown green since yesterday.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Spring, Flower, Years

"In a Fair Country".

8 Copy quote
If I were to choose among all gifts and qualities that which, on the whole, makes life pleasantest, I should select the love of children. No circumstance can render this world wholly a solitude to one who has this possession

Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Children, Solitude, Quality

Thomas Wentworth Higginson (2007). “Outdoor Studies, Poems”, p.245, Reprint Services Corporation

17 Copy quote
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.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Home, Doors, Wheels

Thomas Wentworth Higginson (2012). “Women and the Alphabet A Series of Essays”, p.37, tredition

4 Copy quote
Genius is lonely without the surrounding presence of a people to inspire it.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Lonely, People, Inspire

Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1871). “Atlantic Essays”, p.18

7 Copy quote
Character shows itself apart from genius as a special thing. The first point of measurement of any man is that of quality.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Character, Men, Special

4 Copy quote
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.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Children, Wall, Luxury

Thomas Wentworth Higginson (2007). “Outdoor Studies, Poems”, p.234, Reprint Services Corporation

9 Copy quote
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.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Boys, Bees, Stills

Thomas Wentworth Higginson (2000). “The Magnificent Activist: The Writings of Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823-1911)”

4 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

Emily Dickinson

Margaret Fuller

Epictetus

Kate Douglas Wiggin

Theodore Parker

Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Follow

Born: December 22, 1823
Died: May 9, 1911
Occupation: Author
Cite this Page: Citation

Popular Topics