James Russell Lowell Quotes - Page 7

Quotes about:

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

  James Russell Lowell

  Life, Death, Night

  10 Copy quote

• The right of individual property is no doubt the very corner-stone of civilization, as hitherto understood; but I am a little impatient of being told that property is entitled to exceptional consideration because it bears all the burdens of the state. It bears those, indeed, which can be most easily borne, but poverty pays with its person the chief expenses of war, pestilence, and famine.

  James Russell Lowell

  War, Civilization, Doubt

  James Russell Lowell (1910). “Essays, English and American”

  7 Copy quote

• It may be conjectured that it is cheaper in the long run to lift men up than to hold them down, and that the ballot in their hands is less dangerous to society than a sense of wrong is in their heads.

  James Russell Lowell

  Running, Men, Hands

  James Russell Lowell (1910). “Essays, English and American”

  4 Copy quote

• Not a deed would he do,
  Not a word would he utter,
  Till he's weighed its relation
  To plain bread and butter.

  James Russell Lowell

  Food, Cooking, Deeds

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  Heart, Blue, Sky

  James Russell Lowell (1861). “Poetical Works”, p.3

  4 Copy quote

• Fate loves best such syllables as are sweet and sonorous on the tongue.

  James Russell Lowell

  Sweet, Fate, Love Is

  John Keats, James Russell Lowell (1854). “The Poetical Works of John Keats: With a Life”, p.17

  4 Copy quote

• Puritanism, believing itself quick with the seed of religious liberty, laid, without knowing it, the egg of democracy.

  James Russell Lowell

  Religious, Believe, Eggs

  James Russell Lowell (1870). “Among My Books: Six Essays”, p.227

  4 Copy quote

• The nunneries of silent nooks, the murmured longing of the wood.

  James Russell Lowell

  Woods, Longing, Silent

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Country, Simple, Being Thankful

  Jared Sparks, Edward Everett, James Russell Lowell, Henry Cabot Lodge (1849). “The North American Review”, p.207

  4 Copy quote

• Analysis is carried into everything. Even Deity is subjected to chemical tests.

  James Russell Lowell

  Analysis, Tests, Deities

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Men, Rivers, Heaven

  James Russell Lowell (1871). “My Study Windows”, p.166

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Book, Practice, Class

  Jared Sparks, Edward Everett, James Russell Lowell, Henry Cabot Lodge (1849). “The North American Review”, p.212

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Character, Break Through, Style

  James Russell Lowell (2015). “Abraham Lincoln”, p.22, Sheba Blake Publishing

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Hands, Devil, Poison

  James Russell Lowell (1846). “Conversations on Some of the Old Poets”, p.58

  4 Copy quote

• The secret of force in writing lies not so much in the pedigree of nouns and adjectives and verbs, as in having something that you believe in to say, and making the parts of speech vividly conscious of it.

  James Russell Lowell

  Lying, Believe, Writing

  James Russell Lowell (1870). “Among my Books, etc”, p.162

  7 Copy quote

• A great part of human suffering has its root in the nature of man, and not in that of his institutions.

  James Russell Lowell

  Men, Roots, Suffering

  James Russell Lowell (1897). “Literary and political addresses”

  5 Copy quote

• Piety is indifferent whether she enters at the eye or at the ear. There is none of the senses at which she does not knock one day or other. The Puritans forgot this, and thrust Beauty out of the meeting-house and slammed the door in her face.

  James Russell Lowell

  Eye, Doors, House

  James Russell Lowell (1845). “Conversations on Some of the Old Poets”, p.76

  7 Copy quote

• From lower to the higher next, Not to the top, is Nature's text; And embryo Good, to reach full stature, Absorbs the Evil in its nature.

  James Russell Lowell

  Evil, Next, Embryos

  James Russell Lowell (2016). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell (Illustrated)”, p.548, Delphi Classics

  4 Copy quote

• I don't believe in principle, but I do in interest.

  James Russell Lowell

  Believe, Curiosity, Principles

  11 Copy quote

• Sentiment is intellectualized emotion; emotion precipitated, as it were, in pretty crystals by the fancy.

  James Russell Lowell

  Fancy, Crystals, Emotion

  James Russell Lowell (1857). “Literary essays; Among my books, My study windows, Fireside travels”, p.252

  9 Copy quote

• Among the lessons taught by the French revolution, there is none sadder or more striking than this--that you may make everything else out of the passions of men except a political system that will work, and that there is nothing so pitilessly and unconsciously cruel as sincerity formulated into dogma.

  James Russell Lowell

  Passion, Men, Political

  James Russell Lowell (2015). “Abraham Lincoln”, p.10, Sheba Blake Publishing

  6 Copy quote

• Worshippers of light ancestral make the present light a crime.

  James Russell Lowell

  Light, Tradition, Crime

  James Russell Lowell (2016). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell (Illustrated)”, p.190, Delphi Classics

  4 Copy quote

• To put more faith in lies and hate than truth and love, is the true atheism.

  James Russell Lowell

  Hate, Lying, Love Is

  James Russell Lowell (1871). “The poetical works of James Russell Lowell”, p.111

  4 Copy quote

• Here come the hum the golden bees
  Underneath full blossomed trees,
  At once with glowing fruit and flowers crowned.

  James Russell Lowell

  Flower, Glowing, Tree

  James Russell Lowell (1873). “The Poetical Works of James R. Lowell: Complete in Two Volumes”, p.7

  7 Copy quote

• It is curious for one who studies the action and reaction of national literature on each other, to see the humor of Swift and Sterne and Fielding, after filtering through Richter, reappear in Carlyle with a tinge of Germanism that makes it novel, alien, or even displeasing, as the case may be, to the English mind.

  James Russell Lowell

  Style, Mind, Literature

  James Russell Lowell (1857). “Literary essays; Among my books, My study windows, Fireside travels”, p.88

  7 Copy quote

Page 7 of 19

First

← Prev

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin