James Russell Lowell Quotes
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Fate loves the fearless.
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The wisest man could ask no more of FateThan 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.
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In the scales of the destinies brawn will never weigh so much as brain. Our healing is not in the storm or in the whirlwind, it is not in monarchies, or aristocracies, or democracies, but will be revealed by the still small voice that speaks to the conscience and the heart, prompting us to a wider and wiser humanity.
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Truth, after all, wears a different face to everybody, and it would be too tedious to wait till all were agreed.
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Sincerity is impossible, unless it pervade the whole being, and the pretence of it saps the very foundation of character.
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The traitor to humanity is the traitor most accursed;Man is more than Constitutions; better rot beneath the sod,Than to be true to Church and State while we are doubly false to God!
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Every person born into this world their work is born with them.
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Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.
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In creating, the only hard thing is to begin: a grass blade's no easier to make than an oak.
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Freedom is the only law which genius knows.
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Puritanism, believing itself quick with the seed of religious liberty, laid, without knowing it, the egg of democracy.
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I first drew in New England's air, and from her hardy breastSucked in the tyrant-hating milk that will not let me rest.
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They are slaves who fear to speakFor the fallen and the weak;They are slaves who will not chooseHatred, scoffing, and abuse,Rather than in silence shrinkFrom the truth they needs must think;They are slaves who dare not beIn the right with two or three.
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Greatly begin. Though thou have time, but for a line, be that sublime. Not failure, but low aim is crime.
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Wut's words to them whose faith an' truthOn war's red techstone rang true metal;Who ventered life an' love an' youthFor the gret prize o' death in battle?
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It is the privilege of genius that life never grows common place, as it does for the rest of us.
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One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning.
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All thoughts that mould the age beginDeep down within the primitive soul.
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Though old the thought and oft expressed,'Tis his at last who says it best.
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There is no better ballast for keeping the mind steady on its keel, and saving it from all risk of crankiness, than business.
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He who is firmly seated in authority soon learns to think security, and not progress, the highest lesson in statecraft.
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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.
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The only faith that wears well and holds its color in all weathers is that which is woven of conviction and set with the sharp mordant of experience.
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What men prize most is a privilege, even if it be that of chief mourner at a funeral.