Top 459 Quotes & Sayings by James Russell Lowell

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American poet James Russell Lowell.
Last updated on September 17, 2024.
James Russell Lowell

James Russell Lowell was an American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat. He is associated with the fireside poets, a group of New England writers who were among the first American poets that rivaled the popularity of British poets. These writers usually used conventional forms and meters in their poetry, making them suitable for families entertaining at their fireside.

There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat.
And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days.
Creativity is not the finding of a thing, but the making something out of it after it is found. — © James Russell Lowell
Creativity is not the finding of a thing, but the making something out of it after it is found.
Freedom is the only law which genius knows.
Democracy is the form of government that gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.
All the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.
The surest plan to make a man is, think him so.
The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinions.
Death is delightful. Death is dawn, The waking from a weary night Of fevers unto truth and light.
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.
What a sense of security in an old book which time has criticized for us.
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.
Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character. — © James Russell Lowell
Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character.
Good luck is the willing handmaid of a upright and energetic character, and conscientious observance of duty.
It is the privilege of genius that life never grows common place, as it does for the rest of us.
Usually when people are sad, they don't do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change.
The eye is the notebook of the poet.
The heart forgets its sorrow and ache.
Where one person shapes their life by precept and example, there are a thousand who have shaped it by impulse and circumstances.
Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or the handle.
He who is firmly seated in authority soon learns to think security, and not progress, the highest lesson in statecraft.
I have always been of the mind that in a democracy manners are the only effective weapons against the bowie-knife.
It is by presence of mind in untried emergencies that the native metal of man is tested.
Fate loves the fearless.
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.
Not failure, but low aim, is crime.
Children are God's Apostles, sent forth, day by day, to preach of love, and hope, and peace.
Greatly begin. Though thou have time, but for a line, be that sublime. Not failure, but low aim is crime.
Light is the symbol of truth.
To educate the intelligence is to expand the horizon of its wants and desires.
Blessed are they who have nothing to say and who cannot be persuaded to say it.
Let us be of good cheer, however, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never come.
Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.
The mind can weave itself warmly in the cocoon of its own thoughts, and dwell a hermit anywhere.
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.
Incredulity robs us of many pleasures, and gives us nothing in return.
The greatest homage we can pay to truth, is to use it.
Sincerity is impossible, unless it pervade the whole being, and the pretence of it saps the very foundation of character. — © James Russell Lowell
Sincerity is impossible, unless it pervade the whole being, and the pretence of it saps the very foundation of character.
In creating, the only hard thing is to begin: a grass blade's no easier to make than an oak.
There is nothing so desperately monotonous as the sea, and I no longer wonder at the cruelty of pirates.
What men prize most is a privilege, even if it be that of chief mourner at a funeral.
Fortune is the rod of the weak, and the staff of the brave.
Who's not sat tense before his own heart's curtain.
Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.
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.
A weed is no more than a flower in disguise, Which is seen through at once, if love give a man eyes.
Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.
On one issue at least, men and women agree; they both distrust women. — © James Russell Lowell
On one issue at least, men and women agree; they both distrust women.
Folks never understand the folks they hate.
Endurance is the crowning quality, And patience all the passion of great hearts.
No man can produce great things who is not thoroughly sincere in dealing with himself.
A great man is made up of qualities that meet or make great occasions.
Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how.
Every person born into this world their work is born with them.
Truth, after all, wears a different face to everybody, and it would be too tedious to wait till all were agreed.
One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning.
Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne.
Toward no crimes have men shown themselves so cold- bloodedly cruel as in punishing differences of belief.
True scholarship consists in knowing not what things exist, but what they mean; it is not memory but judgment.
Once to every person and nation come the moment to decide. In the conflict of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side.
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