James Russell Lowell Quotes

Of my merit
On thet pint you yourself may jedge;
All is, I never drink no sperit,
Nor I haint never signed no pledge.

She doeth little kindnesses
Which most leave undone, or despise.

And I honor the man who is willing to sink
Half his present repute for the freedom to think,
And, when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak,
Will risk t'other half for the freedom to speak, Caring naught for what vengeance the mob has in store, Let that mob be the upper ten thousand or lower.

He must be a born leader or misleader of men, or must have been sent into the world unfurnished with that modulating and restraining balance-wheel which we call a sense of humor, who, in old age, has as strong a confidence in his opinions and in the necessity of bringing the universe into conformity with them as he had in youth. In a world the very condition of whose being is that it should be in perpetual flux, where all seems mirage, and the one abiding thing is the effort to distinguish realities from appearances, the elderly man must be indeed of a singularly tough and valid fibre who is certain that he has any clarified residuum of experience, any assured verdict of reflection, that deserves to be called an opinion, or who, even if he had, feels that he is justified in holding mankind by the button while he is expounding it.

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.

Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof.

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

It is the tendency of all creeds, opinions, and political dogmas that have once defined themselves in institutions to become inoperative.

Both of them mean that Labor has no rights which Capital is bound to respect,—that there is no higher law than human interest and cupidity.

Though old the thought and oft exprest,
'Tis his at last who says it best.

There never yet was flower fair in vain.

There comes Poe, with his raven, like Barnaby Rudge,
Three-fifths of him genius and two-fifths sheer fudge.

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

The wisest man could ask no more of Fate
Than to be simple, modest, manly, true,
Safe from the Many, honored by the Few;
To count as naught in World or Church or State;
But inwardly in secret to be great.

The real doth not clip the poet's wings,—
To win the secret of a weed’s plain heart
Reveals some clue to spiritual things,
And stumbling guess becomes firm-footed art.