1.
Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.
James Russell Lowell
2.
Fate loves the fearless.
James Russell Lowell
3.
The devil loves nothing better than the intolerance of reformers.
James Russell Lowell
4.
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
5.
All the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.
James Russell Lowell
6.
One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning.
James Russell Lowell
7.
Light is the symbol of truth.
James Russell Lowell
8.
A weed is no more than a flower in disguise.
James Russell Lowell
9.
Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof.
James Russell Lowell
10.
The brain can be easy to buy, but the heart never comes to market.
James Russell Lowell
11.
Not what we give, but what we share, for the gift without the giver is bare.
James Russell Lowell
12.
Each day the world is born anew for him who takes it rightly.
James Russell Lowell
13.
It is right precious to behold
The first long surf of climbing light
Flood all the thirsty east with gold.
James Russell Lowell
14.
Truth, after all, wears a different face to everybody, and it would be too tedious to wait till all were agreed.
James Russell Lowell
15.
Sincerity is impossible, unless it pervade the whole being, and the pretence of it saps the very foundation of character.
James Russell Lowell
16.
Freedom is the only law which genius knows.
James Russell Lowell
17.
The snow had begun in the gloaming, and busily all the night had been heaping field and highway with a silence deep and white.
James Russell Lowell
18.
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
19.
Endurance is the crowning quality, And patience all the passion of great hearts.
James Russell Lowell
20.
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 Lowell
21.
Those who know the truth are not equal to those who love it Confucius All truth is safe and nothing else is safe, but he who keeps back truth, or withholds it from men, from motives of expediency, is either a coward or a criminal.
James Russell Lowell
22.
The only conclusive evidence of a man's sincerity is that he gives himself for a principle. Words, money, all things else, are comparatively easy to give away; but when a man makes a gift of his daily life and practice, it is plain that the truth, whatever it may be, has taken possession of him.
James Russell Lowell
23.
Folks never understand the folks they hate.
James Russell Lowell
24.
Blessed are they who have nothing to say and who cannot be persuaded to say it.
James Russell Lowell
25.
For men in earnest have no time to waste In patching fig-leaves for the naked truth.
James Russell Lowell
26.
AND what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune, And over it softly her warm ear lays; Whether we look, or whether we listen, We hear life murmur, or see it glisten.
James Russell Lowell
27.
The mind can weave itself warmly in the cocoon of its own thoughts, and dwell a hermit anywhere.
James Russell Lowell
28.
Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or the handle.
James Russell Lowell
29.
Our seasons have no fixed returns, Without our will they come and go; At noon our sudden summer burns, Ere sunset all is snow.
James Russell Lowell
30.
New occasions teach new duties.
James Russell Lowell
31.
Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide.
James Russell Lowell
32.
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
33.
No man is born into the world whose work Is not born with him. There is always work, And tools to work withal, for those who will; And blessed are the horny hands of toil.
James Russell Lowell
34.
Reputation is only a candle, of wavering and uncertain flame, and easily blown out, but it is the light by which the world looks for and finds merit.
James Russell Lowell
35.
The time is ripe, and rotten-ripe, for change... [Truth's] mirror is turned forward, to reflect The promise of the future, not the past.
James Russell Lowell
36.
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
37.
Time makes ancient good uncouth.
James Russell Lowell
38.
There is no better ballast for keeping the mind steady on its keel, and saving it from all risk of crankiness, than business.
James Russell Lowell
39.
The greater your real strength and power, the quieter it will be exercised.
James Russell Lowell
40.
Who's not sat tense before his own heart's curtain.
James Russell Lowell
41.
Metaphor is no argument, though it be sometimes the gunpowder to drive one home, and imbed it in the memory.
James Russell Lowell
42.
No man can produce great things who is not thoroughly sincere in dealing with himself.
James Russell Lowell
43.
And blessed are the horny hands of toil.
James Russell Lowell
44.
If we see light at the end of the tunnel, it's the light of the oncoming train.
James Russell Lowell
45.
Children are God's Apostles, sent forth, day by day, to preach of love, and hope, and peace.
James Russell Lowell
46.
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
47.
The green grass floweth like a stream
Into the oceans's blue.
James Russell Lowell
48.
In the ocean of baseness, the deeper we get, the easier the sinking.
James Russell Lowell
49.
Who speaks the truth stabs falsehood to the heart.
James Russell Lowell
50.
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
