William C. Bryant's Quotes

Winning isn't everything, but it beats anything in second place.

Go forth under the open sky, and list To Nature's teachings.

The February sunshine steeps your boughs and tints the buds and swells the leaves within.

The moon is at her full, and riding high, Floods the calm fields with light. The airs that hover in the summer sky Are all asleep tonight.

Thine eyes are springs in whose serene And silent waters heaven is seen. Their lashes are the herbs that look On their young figures in the brook.

To him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language.

Truth gets well if she is run over by a locomotive, while error dies of lockjaw if she scratches her finger.

A sculptor wields The chisel, and the stricken marble grows To beauty.

A stable, changeless state, 'twere cause indeed to weep.

All that tread, the globe are but a handful to the tribes, that slumber in its bosom.

And suns grow meek, and the meek suns grow brief, and the year smiles as it draws near its death.

Difficulty, my brethren, is the nurse of greatness - a harsh nurse, who roughly rocks her foster - children into strength and athletic proportion.

Eloquence is the poetry of prose.

Loveliest of lovely things are they on earth that soonest pass away. The rose that lives its little hour is prized beyond the sculptured flower.

Pain dies quickly, and lets her weary prisoners go; the fiercest agonies have shortest reign.

Remorse is virtue's root; its fair increase are fruits of innocence and blessedness.

The groves were God's first temples.

The little windflower, whose just opened eye is blue as the spring heaven it gazes at.

Weep not that the world changes - did it keep a stable, changeless state, it were cause indeed to weep.

Where hast thou wandered. gentle gale, to find the perfumes thou dost bring?

Poetry is that art which selects and arranges the symbols of thought in such a manner as to excite the imagination the most powerfully and delightfully.

There is no glory in star or blossom till looked upon by a loving eye; There is no fragrance in April breezes till breathed with joy as they wander by.

Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for: it is a thing to be achieved.

The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.

Two people in a conversation amount to four people talking. The four are what one person says, what he really wanted to say, what his listener heard, and what he thought he heard.