James Russell Lowell Quotes
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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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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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Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it;We are happy now because God wills it.
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The very room, coz she was in,Seemed warm from floor to ceilin'
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And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days.
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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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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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Nature, they say, doth dote,And cannot make a manSave on some worn-out plan,Repeating us by rote.
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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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Earth’s noblest thing, - a woman perfected.
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It may be glorious to writeThoughts that shall glad the two or threeHigh souls, like those far stars that come in sightOnce in a century.
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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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Great truths are portions of the soul of man;Great souls are portions of eternity.
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It's 'most enough to make a deacon swear.
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It is curious how tyrannical the habit of reading is, and what shifts we make to escape thinking. There is no bore we dread being left alone with so much as our own minds.
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There comes Emerson first, whose rich words, every one,Are like gold nails in temples to hang trophies on;Whose prose is grand verse while his verse the Lord knowsIs some of it pr- No, 't is not even prose!
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Good luck is the willing handmaid of a upright and energetic character, and conscientious observance of duty.
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Ye come and go incessant; we remainSafe in the hallowed quiets of the past;Be reverent, ye who flit and are forgot,Of faith so nobly realized as this.
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The thing we long for, that we areFor one transcendent moment.
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But John P.Robinson, heSez they did n't know everythin' down in Judee.
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Not failure, but low aim, is crime.
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Talent is that which is in a man's power; genius is that in whose power a man is.
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In life's small things be resolute and greatTo keep thy muscle trained: know'st thou when FateThy measure takes, or when she'll say to thee,'I find thee worthy; do this deed for me'?
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Truly there is a tide in the affairs of men; but there is no gulf-stream setting forever in one direction.