James Russell Lowell quotes

“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

“Death is delightful. Death is dawn, The waking from a weary night Of fevers unto truth and light.”

— James Russell Lowell

“It is by presence of mind in untried emergencies that the native metal of man is tested.”

— James Russell Lowell

“Once to every person and nation come the moment to decide. In the conflict of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side.”

— James Russell Lowell

“A great man is made up of qualities that meet or make great occasions.”

— 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

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

— 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

“Democracy is the form of government that gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.”

— James Russell Lowell

“He who is firmly seated in authority soon learns to think security, and not progress, the highest lesson in statecraft.”

— James Russell Lowell

“I have always been of the mind that in a democracy manners are the only effective weapons against the bowie-knife.”

— 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

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

— James Russell Lowell

“The greatest homage we can pay to truth, is to use it.”

— James Russell Lowell

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

— James Russell Lowell

“The only faith that wears well and holds its color in all weathers is that which is woven of conviction and set with the sharp mordant of experience.”

— James Russell Lowell

“There is nothing so desperately monotonous as the sea, and I no longer wonder at the cruelty of pirates.”

— James Russell Lowell

“To educate the intelligence is to expand the horizon of its wants and desires.”

— James Russell Lowell

“Where one person shapes their life by precept and example, there are a thousand who have shaped it by impulse and circumstances.”

— James Russell Lowell

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

— James Russell Lowell

“An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.”

— James Russell Lowell

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

— James Russell Lowell

“Fortune is the rod of the weak, and the staff of the brave.”

— 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

“If youth be a defect, it is one that we outgrow only too soon.”

— James Russell Lowell

“Incredulity robs us of many pleasures, and gives us nothing in return.”

— James Russell Lowell

“It is the privilege of genius that life never grows common place, as it does for the rest of us.”

— James Russell Lowell

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

— James Russell Lowell

“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

“The eye is the notebook of the poet.”

— James Russell Lowell