James Russell Lowell Quotes

Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.

Fate loves the fearless.

The devil loves nothing better than the intolerance of reformers.

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!

All the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.

One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning.

Light is the symbol of truth.

A weed is no more than a flower in disguise.

Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof.

The brain can be easy to buy, but the heart never comes to market.

Not what we give, but what we share, for the gift without the giver is bare.

Each day the world is born anew for him who takes it rightly.

It is right precious to behold The first long surf of climbing light Flood all the thirsty east with gold.

Truth, after all, wears a different face to everybody, and it would be too tedious to wait till all were agreed.

Sincerity is impossible, unless it pervade the whole being, and the pretence of it saps the very foundation of character.

Freedom is the only law which genius knows.

The snow had begun in the gloaming, and busily all the night had been heaping field and highway with a silence deep and white.

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.

Endurance is the crowning quality, And patience all the passion of great hearts.

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.

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.

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.

Folks never understand the folks they hate.

Blessed are they who have nothing to say and who cannot be persuaded to say it.

For men in earnest have no time to waste In patching fig-leaves for the naked truth.

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.

The mind can weave itself warmly in the cocoon of its own thoughts, and dwell a hermit anywhere.

Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or the handle.

Our seasons have no fixed returns, Without our will they come and go; At noon our sudden summer burns, Ere sunset all is snow.

New occasions teach new duties.

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide.

The dandelions and buttercups gild all the lawn: the drowsy bee stumbles among the clover tops, and summer sweetens all to me.

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.

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.

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.

New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth; They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.

Time makes ancient good uncouth.

There is no better ballast for keeping the mind steady on its keel, and saving it from all risk of crankiness, than business.

The greater your real strength and power, the quieter it will be exercised.

Who's not sat tense before his own heart's curtain.

Metaphor is no argument, though it be sometimes the gunpowder to drive one home, and imbed it in the memory.

No man can produce great things who is not thoroughly sincere in dealing with himself.

And blessed are the horny hands of toil.

If we see light at the end of the tunnel, it's the light of the oncoming train.

Children are God's Apostles, sent forth, day by day, to preach of love, and hope, and peace.

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.

The green grass floweth like a stream Into the oceans's blue.

In the ocean of baseness, the deeper we get, the easier the sinking.

Who speaks the truth stabs falsehood to the heart.

There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat.