James Russell Lowell Quotes

Is true Freedom but to break Fetters for our own dear sake, And, with leathern hearts, forget That we owe mankind a debt? <p> No! true freedom is to share All the chains our brothers wear, And, with heart and hand, to be Earnest to make others free!<p>

If there breathe on earth a slave, Are ye truly free and brave? If ye do not feel the chain, When it works a brother's pain, Are ye not base slaves indeed, Slaves unworthy to be freed?

That love for one, from which there doth not spring
Wide love for all, is but a worthless thing.

Be noble! and the nobleness that lies
In other men, sleeping but never dead,
Will rise in majesty to meet thine own.

Earth’s noblest thing, — a woman perfected.

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

If I were asked what book is better than a cheap book, I should answer that there is one book better than a cheap book, — and that is a book honestly come by.

In vain we call old notions fudge,
And bend our conscience to our dealing;
The Ten Commandments will not budge,
And stealing will continue stealing.

The soil out of which such men as he are made is good to be born on, good to live on, good to die for and to be buried in.

The child is not mine as the first was,
I cannot sing it to rest,
I cannot lift it up fatherly
And bliss it upon my breast;
Yet it lies in my little one's cradle
And sits in my little one's chair,
And the light of the heaven she's gone to
Transfigures its golden hair.

But life is sweet, though all that makes it sweet
Lessen like sound of friends’ departing feet;
And Death is beautiful as feet of friend
Coming with welcome at our journey’s end.
For me Fate gave, whate’er she else denied,
A nature sloping to the southern side;
I thank her for it, though when clouds arise
Such natures double-darken gloomy skies.

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

Blessed are they who have nothing to say, and who cannot be persuaded to say it.

The capacity of indignation makes an essential part of the outfit of every honest man.

When I was a beggarly boy,
And lived in a cellar damp,
I had not a friend nor a toy,
But I had Aladdin's lamp.