James Russell Lowell: Trending quotes (page 6)

“Truth, after all, wears a different face to everybody, and it would be too tedious to wait till all were agreed. She is said to lie at the bottom of a well, for the very reason, perhaps, that whoever looks down in search of her sees his own image at the bottom, and is persuaded not only that he has seen the goddess, but that she is far better looking than he had imagined.”

James Russell Lowell

On Democracy (6 October 1884)

Truth , Lie , Imagination , Search

“The wisest man could ask no more of Fate
Than 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.”

James Russell Lowell Sonnet

Sonnet, Jeffries Wyman (1874)

Fate , Secret , World

“Our slender life runs rippling by, and glides
Into the silent hollow of the past;
What is there that abides
To make the next age better for the last?”

James Russell Lowell

St. 3.
Ode Recited at the Harvard Commemoration http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/1169/ (July 21, 1865)

Life , Age , Past

“Wut's words to them whose faith an' truth
On war's red techstone rang true metal;
Who ventered life an' love an' youth
For the gret prize o' death in battle?”

James Russell Lowell

No. 10.
The Biglow Papers (1848–1866), Series II (1866)

Love , Life , Death , War

“The surest plan to make a Man
Is, think him so.”

James Russell Lowell

No. 2.
The Biglow Papers (1848–1866), Series II (1866)

Thinking

“The Maple puts her corals on in May,
While loitering frosts about the lowlands cling,
To be in tune with what the robins sing.”

James Russell Lowell

Sonnet, The Maple http://www.theatlantic.com/ideastour/archive/lowell.mhtml (1875)

Singing

“Here was a type of the true elder race,
And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face.”

James Russell Lowell

St. 5.
Ode Recited at the Harvard Commemoration http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/1169/ (July 21, 1865)

Men

“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.”

James Russell Lowell

Literary Essays, vol. II (1870–1890), New England Two Centuries Ago

Way , Knowledge

“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.”

James Russell Lowell

Garfield (24 September 1881)

Men

“Truly there is a tide in the affairs of men; but there is no gulf-stream setting forever in one direction.”

James Russell Lowell

Literary Essays, vol. II (1870–1890), New England Two Centuries Ago

Men

“Endurance is the crowning quality,
And patience all the passion of great hearts.”

James Russell Lowell

Columbus (1844)

Passion , Heart , Patience

“Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character.”

James Russell Lowell

Dryden
Literary Essays, vol. III (1870-1890)

Imagination , Solitude

“Laborin' man an' laborin' woman
Hev one glory an' one shame;
Ev'y thin' thet's done inhuman
Injers all on 'em the same.”

James Russell Lowell

No. 1, st. 5
The Biglow Papers (1848–1866), Series I (1848)

“Talent is that which is in a man's power; genius is that in whose power a man is.”

James Russell Lowell

Literary Essays, vol. II (1870–1890), Rousseau and the Sentimentalists

“One day with life and heart
Is more than time enough to find a world.”

James Russell Lowell

Columbus (1844)

Life , World , Time , Heart

“How little inventiveness there is in man,
Grave copier of copies, I give thanks
For a new relish, careless to inquire
My pleasure's pedigree, if so it please,
Nobly, I mean, nor renegade to art.
The Grecian gluts me with its perfectness,
Unanswerable as Euclid, self-contained,
The one thing finished in this hasty world,
Forever finished, though the barbarous pit,
Fanatical on hearsay, stamp and shout
As if a miracle could be encored.”

James Russell Lowell

The Cathedral, st. 9

Pleasure , World , Art , Perfection

“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

Referring to John C. Breckenridge and Stephen A. Douglas (Abraham Lincoln's opponents)
The Election in November 1860 (1860)

Law

“He stood a spell on one foot fust
Then stood a spell on t' other,
An' on which one he felt the wust
He could n't ha' told ye nuther.”

James Russell Lowell

The Courtin' .
The Biglow Papers (1848–1866), Series II (1866)

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

James Russell Lowell

On Democracy (6 October 1884)

People

“Ez fer war, I call it murder—
There you hev it plain an' flat;
I don't want to go no furder
Than my Testyment fer that.”

James Russell Lowell

No. 1, st. 2
The Biglow Papers (1848–1866), Series I (1848)

War