James Russell Lowell Quotes

Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us;
The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in,
The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us,
We bargain for the graves we lie in;
At the Devil's booth are all things sold
Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold.

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.

Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages but record
One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the Word;
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,—
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.

The one thet fust gits mad 's 'most ollers wrong.

We are persuaded that the election of Mr. Lincoln will do more than anything else to appease the excitement of the country. He has proved both his ability and his integrity; he has had experience enough in public affairs to make him a statesman, and not enough to make him a politician.

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

Who speaks the truth stabs Falsehood to the heart.

Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.

Even as the roots, shut in the darksome earth,
Share in the tree top's joyance, and conceive
Of sunshine and wide air and winged things,
By sympathy of nature, so do I

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

Gineral C. is a dreffle smart man;
He’s ben on all sides thet give places or pelf;
But consistency still wuz a part of his plan,—
He’s ben true to one party, an’ thet is himself.

Along A River-Side, I Know Not Where,
I walked one night in mystery of dream;
A chill creeps curdling yet beneath my hair,
To think what chanced me by the pallid gleam
Of a moon-wraith that waned through haunted air.

The clear, sweet singer with the crown of snow
Not whiter than the thoughts that housed below.

Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof.

My gran'ther's rule was safer 'n 'tis to crow:
Don't never prophesy — onless ye know.