James Russell Lowell Quotes

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

What a sense of security in an old book which Time has criticized for us!

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

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth and falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, some new decision, offering each bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever twixt that darkness and that light.

In creating the only hard thing's to begin

It ain't by princerples nor men
My preudunt course is steadied—
I scent wich pays the best, an' then
Go into it baldheaded.

Nature, they say, doth dote,
And cannot make a man
Save on some worn-out plan,
Repeating us by rote.

By the light of burning martyrs, Christ, thy bleeding feet we track
Toiling up new Calv'ries ever with the cross that turns not back
New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth
We must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth

Earth’s noblest thing, — a woman perfected.

At the devil's booth are all things sold. Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold.

Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes, — they were souls that stood alone, While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone, Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine, By one man's plain truth to manhood and to God's supreme design.

Whatever be the effect of slavery upon the States where it exists, there can be no doubt that its moral influence upon the North has been most disastrous. It has compelled our politicians into that first fatal compromise with their moral instincts and hereditary principles which makes all consequent ones easy; it has accustomed us to makeshifts instead of statesmanship, to subterfuge instead of policy, to party-platforms for opinions, and to a defiance of the public sentiment of the civilized world for patriotism.

Talent is that which is in a man's power; genius is that in whose power a man is.

The birch, most shy and lady-like of trees,
Her poverty, as best she may, retrieves,
And hints at her foregone gentilities
With some saved relics of her wealth of leaves.

He stood a spell on one foot fust
Then stood a spell on t' other,
An' on which one he felt the wust
He could n't ha' told ye nuther.