James Russell Lowell Quotes
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Nature, they say, doth dote,And cannot make a manSave on some worn-out plan,Repeating us by rote.
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Poetry is something to make us wiser and better, by continually revealing those types of beauty and truth, which God has set in all men's souls.
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The little that we doIs but half-nobly true;With our laborious hivingWhat men call treasure, and the gods call dross,Life seems a jest of Fate's contriving,Only secure in every one's conniving,A long account of nothings paid with loss.
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For though he builds glorious temples, 'tis oddHe leaves never a doorway to get in a god.
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Along A River-Side, I Know Not Where,I walked one night in mystery of dream;A chill creeps curdling yet beneath my hair,To think what chanced me by the pallid gleamOf a moon-wraith that waned through haunted air.
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Under the yaller pines I house,When sunshine makes 'em all sweet-scented,An' hear among their furry boughsThe baskin' west-wind purr contented.
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Soft-heartedness, in times like these,Shows sof'ness in the upper story.
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A marciful Providunce fashioned us hollerO' purpose thet we might our principles swaller.
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Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way,Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold,First pledge of blithesome May,Which children pluck, and, full of pride uphold.
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And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days.
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Not failure, but low aim, is crime.
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Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.
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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?
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Simple as it seems, it was a great discovery that the key of knowledge could turn both ways, that it could open, as well as lock, the door of power to the many.
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God, give us Peace! not such as lulls to sleep,But sword on thigh and brow with purpose knit!And let our Ship of State to harbor sweep,Her ports all up, her battle lanterns lit,And her leashed thunders gathering for their leap.
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But John P.Robinson, heSez they did n't know everythin' down in Judee.
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His heart kep' goin' pity-pat,But hern went pity-Zekle.
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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.
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Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof; it is temporary expedient, often wise in party politics, almost sure to be unwise in statesmanship.
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The snow had begun in the gloaming,And busily all the nightHad been heaping field and highwayWith a silence deep and white.
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The very room, coz she was in,Seemed warm from floor to ceilin'
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There is no price set on the lavish summer,And June may be had by the poorest comer.
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One day with life and heartIs more than time enough to find a world.
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No, never say nothin' without you're compelled tu,An' then don't say nothin' thet you can be held tu.