James Russell Lowell Quotes

These pearls of thought in Persian gulfs were bred,Each softly lucent as a rounded moon;The diver Omar plucked them from their bed,Fitzgerald strung them on an English thread.

James Russell Lowell

• English
• Moon

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Quotes to Explore

• Nature fits all her children with something to do,He who would write and can't write, can surely review.

  

  James Russell Lowell
  • Children
  • Nature

• The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinions.

  

  James Russell Lowell
  • Alone

• It is by presence of mind in untried emergencies that the native metal of man is tested.

  

  James Russell Lowell
  • Mind

• ’Tain’t by turnin’ out to hack folksYou’re agoin’ to git your right,Nor by lookin’ down on black folksCoz you’re put upon by white;Slavery ain’t o’ nary color,’Tain’t the hide thet makes it wus,All it keers fer in a feller’S jest to make him fill its pus.

  

  James Russell Lowell
  • Black
  • Color
  • Slavery

• A wise skepticism is the first attribute of a good critic.

  

  James Russell Lowell
  • Good
  • Wise

• For a cap and bells our lives we pay,Bubbles we earn with a whole soul's tasking:'Tis heaven alone that is given away,'Tis only God may be had for the asking.

  

  James Russell Lowell
  • God
  • May
  • Soul

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

  

  James Russell Lowell
  • Raven

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

  

  James Russell Lowell
  • May
  • She
  • Poverty

• 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.

  

  James Russell Lowell
  • Law
  • Respect

• Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne.

  

  James Russell Lowell
  • Truth
  • Forever

• There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat.

  

  James Russell Lowell
  • Good
  • Wind

• Things always seem fairer when we look back at them, and it is out of that inaccessible tower of the past that Longing leans and beckons.

  

  James Russell Lowell
  • Past

• But life is sweet, though all that makes it sweetLessen like sound of friends’ departing feet;And Death is beautiful as feet of friendComing 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 ariseSuch natures double-darken gloomy skies.

  

  James Russell Lowell
  • Life
  • She
  • Friends

• New times demand new measures and new men;The world advances, and in time outgrowsThe laws which in our father's times were best;And doubtless, after us, some purer schemeWill be shaped out by wiser men than we,Made wiser by the steady growth of truth.

  

  James Russell Lowell
  • Time
  • World
  • Men

• Each day the world is born anew for him who takes it rightly.

  

  James Russell Lowell
  • World

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

  

  James Russell Lowell
  • Blessed

• Toward no crimes have men shown themselves so cold- bloodedly cruel as in punishing differences of belief.

  

  James Russell Lowell
  • Men
  • Cold

• An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.

  

  James Russell Lowell
  • People
  • Long

• Fortune is the rod of the weak, and the staff of the brave.

  

  James Russell Lowell
  • Brave

• And I honor the man who is willing to sinkHalf 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.

  

  James Russell Lowell
  • Freedom
  • Strong
  • Present

• She doeth little kindnessesWhich most leave undone, or despise.

  

  James Russell Lowell
  • She

• 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.

  

  James Russell Lowell
  • Country
  • Experience
  • Integrity

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

  

  James Russell Lowell

• These pearls of thought in Persian gulfs were bred,Each softly lucent as a rounded moon;The diver Omar plucked them from their bed,Fitzgerald strung them on an English thread.

  

  James Russell Lowell
  • English
  • Moon