Mount Fuji
(12,389 ft)		 Mountain Quotations

Edited by Peter Y. Chou
WisdomPortal.com


Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
(13th Edition, 1955)


Preface: From my personal library copy of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (13th Edition, 1955), found in the Index the following citations: 20 Mountain, 36 Mountains, 5 Mount, 3 Mountaintops. Copied six pages of 39 selected quotations. Seven of these quotes are from the Bible, and will not be listed here, but in the "Quotes from the Bible" section. William Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey" has 5 citations of "mountain" in his poem, none listed in Bartlett's. I've included one below. Quotes arranged in chronological order in two columns.


A huge gap appeared in the side of
the mountain. At last a tiny mouse
poked its little head out of the gap.
— Aesop (circa 550 BC)
    "The Mountain in Labour"

While rivers run into the sea, while
mountains shadows move over the slopes,
while heaven feeds the stars, ever shall
thy honor, thy name, and thy praises endure.
— Virgil (70 BC-10 BC)
    The Aeneid (19 BC) Book I, Line 607

The mountains too, at a distance,
appears airy masses and smooth,
but seen near at hand they are rough.
— Diogenes Laertius (circa 200 AD)
    Pyrrho, IX

Pure and disposed to mount unto the stars.
— Dante Aligheri (1265-1321)
    Divine Comedy: Purgatorio, XXXIII.145 (1321)
    (translated by Charles Eliot Norton, 1902)

Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops.
— William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
    Romeo and Juliet (1595), Act III, Scene 5, Line 9

Orpheus with his lute made trees,
And the mountain-tops that freeze,
Bow themselves when he did sing.
— William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
    King Henry VIII (1613), Act III, Scene 1, Line 3

The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty.
— John Milton (1608-1674)
    "L'Allegro" (1632), Line 36

They came to the Delectable Mountains
— John Bunyan (1628-1688)
    Pilgrim's Progress, Part I (1678)

So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind's roar,
But bind him to is native mountains more.
— Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774)
    "The Traveller", Line 217 (1764)

Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur.— Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
— William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
    "Tintern Abbey" (1798), Line 3

'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,
And robes the mountain in its azure hue.
— Thomas Campbell (1777-1844)
    "Pleasures of Hope" (1799), Part I, Line 7

Separate from the pleasure of your company, I don't
much care if I never see a mountain in my life.
— Charles Lamb (1775-1834)
    "Letter to Wordsworth" (January 30, 1801)

This feat of Tell, the archer, will be told
While Yonder mountains stand upon their base.
By Heaven! the apple's cleft right through the core.
— Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805)
    William Tell (1804), Act III, Scene 3

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?
— William Blake (1757-1827)
    "Milton" (1808), Stanza 1

He who ascends to mountain-tops, shall find
The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow;
He who surpasses or subdues mankind
Must look down on the hate of those below.
— Lord Gordon Byron (1788-1824)
    Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812),
    Canto III, Stanza 45

Mont Blanc is the monarch of mountains;
    They crowned him long ago
On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds,
    With a diadem of snow.
— Lord Gordon Byron (1788-1824)
    Manfred (1817), Act I, Scene 1

The mountains look on Marathon,
And Marathon ooks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,
I dreamed that Greece might still be free.
— Lord Gordon Byron (1788-1824)
    Don Juan, Canto III (1821), Stanza 86.3

My country, 'tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
   Of thee I sing:
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrim's pride,
From every mountain-side
   Let freedom ring.
— Samuel Francis Smith (1808-1895)
    America (1831)


US 1068
Old Man of Mtns
(issued 6-21-1955)
New Hampshire's
Old Man of
the Mountains
United States Coin
Reverse: 2000 Quarter
New Hampshire

But up in the mountains of New Hampshire,
God Almighty has hung out a sign to show
that there He makes men.
— Daniel Webster (1782-1852)
    "The Old Man of the Mountain"
    (Collapsed 5-3-2003)

I'll walk where my own nature would be leading—
    It vexes me to choose another guide—
Where the grey flocks in ferny glens are feeding,
    Where the wild wind blows on the mountain-side.
— Emily Bronte (1818-1848)
    "Often Rebuked" (1846), Stanza 4

Round the cape of a sudden came the sea,
And the sun looked over the mountain's rim:
And straight was a path of gold for him,
And the need of a world of men for me.
— Robert Browning (1812-1889)
    "Parting at Morning" (1846)

To go on trusting, namely, till faith move Mountains.
— Robert Browning (1812-1889)
    "The Ring and the Book" (1869)
    III, The Other Half-Rome

Up the airy moountain,
    Down the rushy glen,
We daren't go a-hunting
    For fear of little men.
— William Allingham (1828-1889)
    "The Fairies", Stanza 1 (1850)

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
— Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)
    "The Eagle" (1851)

A boundless vision grows upon us; an untamed
continent; vast wastes of forest verdure;
mountains silent in primeval sleep; river,
lake, and glimmering pool; wilderness oceans
mingling with the sky. Such was the domain
which France conquered for Civilization.
— Francis Parkman (1823-1893)
    Pioneers of France in the New World (1865)

Mountains are earth's undecaying monuments.
— Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
    Sketches from Memory (1868)
    "The Notch of the White Mountains"

O the mind, mind has mountains;
    cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed.
— Gerald Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)
    "No worst, there is none", Sonnet (1877)

Sweet the memory is to me
Of a land beyond the sea,
Where the waves and mountains meet,
Where amid her mulberry-trees
Sits Amalfi in the heat,
Bathing ever her white feet
In the tideless summer seas.
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
    "Amalfi" (1879), Stanza 1

O beautiful for spacious skies,
    For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
    Above the fruited plain!
        America! America!
— Katharine Lee Bates (1859-1929)
    "America the Beautiful" (1893), Stanza 1

Here was a man to hold against the world,
A man to match the mountains and the sea.
— Edwin Markham (1852-1940)
    "Lincoln, Man of the People" (1901), Stanza 1

My heart is on the mountain still,
    Where'er my steps may be,
Vermont, O maiden of the hills,
My heart is there with thee.
— Wendell Phillips Stafford (1861-1953)
    "Vermont: A Song", Stanza 1 (1910)

All I could see from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood.
— Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)
    "Renascense" (1917)

The Vermont mountains stretch extended straight;
New Hampshire mountains curl up in a coil.
— Robert Frost (1875-1963)
    "New Hampshire" (1923), Stanza 19



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