James Russell Lowell quotes
-
“One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning.”
-- James Russell LowellSource : James Russell Lowell (1870). “Among My Books”, p.223
-
“All the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.”
-- James Russell LowellSource : 1867 'Rousseau and the Sentimentalists', in the North American Review, Jul.
-
“Not what we give, but what we share, for the gift without the giver is bare.”
-- James Russell LowellSource : James Russell Lowell (1871). “The poetical works of James Russell Lowell”, p.122
-
-
“Folks never understand the folks they hate.”
-- James Russell LowellSource : James Russell Lowell (2016). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell (Illustrated)”, p.523, Delphi Classics
-
“A weed is no more than a flower in disguise.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“Blessed are they who have nothing to say and who cannot be persuaded to say it.”
-- James Russell LowellSource : "His Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Alexis in the United States of America during the winter of 1871-72", Riverside Press, 1872.
-
“Endurance is the crowning quality, And patience all the passion of great hearts.”
-- James Russell LowellSource : James Russell Lowell (2016). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell (Illustrated)”, p.166, Delphi Classics
-
-
“The dandelions and buttercups gild all the lawn: the drowsy bee stumbles among the clover tops, and summer sweetens all to me.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do that day, which must be done, whether you like it or not.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“Children are God's Apostles, sent forth, day by day, to preach of love, and hope, and peace.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“Truth, after all, wears a different face to everybody, and it would be too tedious to wait till all were agreed.”
-- James Russell LowellSource : James Russell Lowell (1887). “Democracy, and Other Addresses”
-
-
“It is by presence of mind in untried emergencies that the native metal of man is tested.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“Life is a sheet of paper white / Whereon each one of us may write / His word or two, and then comes night.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof; it is temporary expedient, often wise in party politics, almost sure to be unwise in statesmanship.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“The question of common sense is always: 'what is it good for?' - a question which would abolish the rose and be answered triumphantly by the cabbage.”
-- James Russell LowellSource : James Russell Lowell (1871). “My Study Windows”, p.250
-
-
“What visionary tints the year puts on, When falling leaves falter through motionless air Or numbly cling and shiver to be gone! How shimmer the low flats and pastures bare, As with her nectar Hebe Autumn fills The bowl between me and those distant hills, And smiles and shakes abroad her misty, tremulous hair!”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“There is something magnificent in having a country to love.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“Greatly begin. Though thou have time, but for a line, be that sublime. Not failure, but low aim is crime.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“The devil loves nothing better than the intolerance of reformers.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
-
“Fortune is the rod of the weak, and the staff of the brave.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“In creating, the only hard thing is to begin: a grass blade's no easier to make than an oak.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“As life runs on, the road grows strange with faces new - and near the end. The milestones into headstones change, Neath every one a friend.”
-- James Russell LowellSource : 1887 'Sixty-Eighth Birthday'.
-
“Poetry is something to make us wiser and better, by continually revealing those types of beauty and truth, which God has set in all men's souls.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
-
“No man can produce great things who is not thoroughly sincere in dealing with himself.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“Talent is that which is in a man's power; genius is that in whose power a man is.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
-
“Creativity is not the finding of a thing, but the making something out of it after it is found.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“Truth, after all, wears a different face to everybody, and it would be too tedious to wait till all were agreed. She is said to lie at the bottom of a well, for the very reason, perhaps, that whoever looks down in search of her sees his own image at the bottom, and is persuaded not only that he has seen the goddess, but that she is far better looking than he had imagined.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“Toward no crimes have men shown themselves so cold- bloodedly cruel as in punishing differences of belief.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
-
“Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.”
-- James Russell LowellSource : 1849 'Nationality in Literature', in the North American Review, Jul.
-
“I willingly confess to so great a partiality for trees as tempts me to respect a man in exact proportion to his respect for them.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“No price is set on the lavish summer; June may be had by the poorest comer.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“Freedom is the only law which genius knows.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
-
“Each day the world is born anew for him who takes it rightly.”
-- James Russell LowellSource : James Russell Lowell (1871). “The poetical works of James Russell Lowell”, p.416
-
“Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“The heart forgets its sorrow and ache.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“The better part of every man's education is that which he gives himself.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
-
“The brain can be easy to buy, but the heart never comes to market.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“Endurance is the crowning quality...”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“Not failure, but low aim, is crime.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
-
“Nature fits all her children with something to do, he who would write and can't write, can surely review.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“As one lamp lights another, nor grows less,So nobleness enkindleth nobleness.”
-- James Russell LowellSource : James Russell Lowell (1871). “The poetical works of James Russell Lowell”, p.406
-
“The eye is the notebook of the poet.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this, that you are dreadfully like other people.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
-
“To educate the intelligence is to expand the horizon of its wants and desires.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“A sneer is the weapon of the weak. Like other devil's weapons, it is always cunningly ready to our hand, and there is more poison in the handle than in the point.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“It is quite too common a practice, both in readers and the more superficial class of critics, to judge a book by what it is not, a matter much easier to determine than what it is.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“Let us be thankful that there is no court by which we can be excluded from our share in the inheritance of the great poets of all ages and countries, to which our simple humanity entitles us.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
-
“A marciful Providunce fashioned us holler O' purpose thet we might our principles swaller.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“Analysis is carried into everything. Even Deity is subjected to chemical tests.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“Worshippers of light ancestral make the present light a crime.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
-
“They are slaves who fear to speak For the fallen and the weak; They are slaves who will not choose Hatred, scoffing, and abuse, Rather than in silence shrink From the truth they needs must think; They are slaves who dare not be In the right with two or three.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“One of the things particularly admirable in the public utterances of President Lincoln is a certain tone of familiar dignity, which, while it is perhaps the most difficult attainment of mere style, is also no doubtful indication of personal character. There must be something essentially noble in an elective ruler who can descend to the level of confidential ease without forfeiting respect, something very manly in one who can break through the etiquette of his conventional rank and trust himself to the reason and intelligence of those who have elected him.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes, - they were souls that stood alone, While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone, Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine, By one man's plain truth to manhood and to God's supreme design.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“New conditions of life will stimulate thought and give new forms to its expression.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
-
“Ye come and go incessant; we remain Safe in the hallowed quiets of the past; Be reverent, ye who flit and are forgot, Of faith so nobly realized as this.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“This imputation of inconsistency is one to which every sound politician and every honest thinker must sooner or later subject himself. The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinion.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“Slow are the steps of freedom, but her feet turn never backward.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“Who knows whither the clouds have fled? In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake; And the eyes forget the tears they have shed, The heart forgets its sorrow and ache.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
-
“The time is ripe, and rotten-ripe, for change.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“The English Puritans pulled down church and state to rebuild Zion on the ruins, and all the while it was not Zion, but America, they were building.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“How little inventiveness there is in man, Grave copier of copies.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
-
“Literature, properly so called, draws its sap from the deep soil of human nature's common and everlasting sympathies, the gathered leaf-mound of countless generations, and not from any top dressing capriciously scattered over the surface.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“For only by unlearning Wisdom comes.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“Tis easy now for the heart to be true As for grass to be green or skies to be blue-- 'Tis the natural way of living.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“Fools, when their roof-tree falls, think it doomsday.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
-
“It ["The Ancient Mariner"] is marvellous in its mastery over that delightfully fortuitous inconsequence that is the adamantine logic of dreamland.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“Ah, men do not know how much strength is in poise, That he goes the farthest who goes far enough.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“You've gut to git up airly Ef you want to take in God.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“It is singular how impatient men are with overpraise of others, how patient of overpraise of themselves; and yet the one does them no injury, while the other may be their ruin.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
-
“The traitor to Humanity is the traitor most accurst.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“Never did Poesy appear So full of heaven to me, as when I saw how it would pierce through pride and fear To the lives of coarsest men.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“It is curious how tyrannical the habit of reading is, and what shifts we make to escape thinking. There is no bore we dread being left alone with so much as our own minds.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“A nature wise With finding in itself the types of all, With watching from the dim verge of the time What things to be are visible in the gleams Thrown forward on them from the luminous past, Wise with the history of its own frail heart, With reverence and sorrow, and with love, Broad as the world, for freedom and for man.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
-
“The pine is the mother of legends.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“He's true to God who's true to man.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“Tis as easy to be heroes as to sit the idle slaves.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“Men! whose boast it is that ye Come of fathers brave and free, If there breathe on earth a slave, Are ye truly free and brave?”
-- James Russell Lowell -
-
“A profound common sense is the best genius for statesmanship.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“So we're all right, an' I, for one, Don't think our cause'll lose in vally By rammin' Scriptur' in our gun, An' gittin' Natur' for an ally.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“Keats longed for fame, but longed above all to deserve it.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
-
“The course of a great statesman resembles that of navigable rivers, avoiding immovable obstacles with noble bends of concession, seeking the broad levels of opinion on which men soonest settle and longest dwell, following and marking the almost imperceptible slopes of national tendency, yet always aiming at direct advances, always recruited from sources nearer heaven, and sometimes bursting open paths of progress and fruitful human commerce through what seem the eternal barriers of both.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“With every anguish of our earthly part The spirit's sight grows clearer.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“Ah, in this world, where every guiding thread Ends suddenly in the one sure centre, death, The visionary hand of Might-have-been Alone can fill Desire's cup to the brim!”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“Fate loves best such syllables as are sweet and sonorous on the tongue.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
-
“For Humanity sweeps onward: where today the martyr stands, On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands; Far in front the cross stands ready and the crackling ***** burn, While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return To glean up the scattered ashes into History's golden urn.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“Fanaticism, or, to call it by its milder name, enthusiasm, is only powerful and active so long as it is aggressive. Establish it firmly in power, and it becomes conservatism, whether it will or no.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“The pressure of public opinion is like the pressure of the atmosphere; you can't see it - but all the same, it is sixteen pounds to the square inch.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth; They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
-
“He who esteems the Virginia reel A bait to draw saints from their spiritual weal, And regards the quadrille as a far greater knavery Than crushing His African children with slavery, Since all who take part in a waltz or cotillon Are mounted for hell on the devil's own pillion, Who, as every true orthodox Christian well knows, Approaches the heart through the door of the toes.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“Behind the dim unknown, Standeth God with the shadow, keeping watch above his own.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“All share in the government of the world was denied for centuries to perhaps the ablest, certainly the most tenacious race that had ever lived in it”
-- James Russell Lowell -
“In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal claim.”
-- James Russell Lowell -
You may also like:
-
Amy Lowell
Poet -
Charles Eliot Norton
Author -
Edgar Allan Poe
Author -
George Ripley
Journalist -
Henry David Thoreau
Author -
James F. Cooper
Writer -
James Thomas Fields
Publisher -
James Whitcomb Riley
Writer -
Margaret Fuller
Journalist -
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Novelist -
Nathaniel Parker Willis
Author -
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essayist -
Robert Lowell
Poet -
Washington Irving
Author -
William C. Bryant
Poet -
William Dean Howells
Author -
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Physician
