1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. James Russell Lowell

James Russell Lowell Quotes
page 2

James Russell Lowell was an American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat. He is associated with the Fireside Poets, a group of New England writers who were among the first American poets that rivaled the popularity of British poets. These writers usually used conventional forms and meters in their poetry, making them suitable for families entertaining at their fireside.

Lowell graduated from Harvard College in 1838, despite his reputation as a troublemaker, and went on to earn a law degree from Harvard Law School. He published his first collection of poetry in 1841 and married Maria White in 1844. The couple had several children, though only one survived past childhood.

He became involved in the movement to abolish slavery, with Lowell using poetry to express his anti-slavery views and taking a job in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as the editor of an abolitionist newspaper. After moving back to Cambridge, Lowell was one of the founders of a journal called The Pioneer, which lasted only three issues. He gained notoriety in 1848 with the publication of A Fable for Critics, a book-length poem satirizing contemporary critics and poets. The same year, he published The Biglow Papers, which increased his fame. He went on to publish several other poetry collections and essay collections throughout his literary career.

Maria died in 1853, and Lowell accepted a professorship of languages at Harvard in 1854. He traveled to Europe before officially assuming his teaching duties in 1856, and married Frances Dunlap shortly thereafter in 1857. That year, Lowell also became editor of The Atlantic Monthly. He continued to teach at Harvard for twenty years.

He received his first political appointment, the ambassadorship to the Kingdom of Spain 20 years later. He was later appointed ambassador to the Court of St. James's. He spent his last years in Cambridge in the same estate where he was born, and died there in 1891.

Lowell believed that the poet played an important role as a prophet and critic of society. He used poetry for reform, particularly in abolitionism. However, his commitment to the anti-slavery cause wavered over the years, as did his opinion on African-Americans. He attempted to emulate the true Yankee accent in the dialogue of his characters, particularly in The Biglow Papers. This depiction of the dialect, as well as his many satires, was an inspiration to writers such as Mark Twain and H. L. Mencken.



Wikipedia  

✵ 22. February 1819 – 12. August 1891
James Russell Lowell photo
James Russell Lowell: 175 quotes9 likes

James Russell Lowell Quotes

“The thing we long for, that we are
For one transcendent moment.”

James Russell Lowell

Longing

“I du believe with all my soul
In the gret Press's freedom,
To pint the people to the goal
An' in the traces lead 'em.”

James Russell Lowell

No. 6, st. 7
The Biglow Papers (1848–1866), Series I (1848)

“I don't believe in princerple,
But oh I du in interest.”

James Russell Lowell

No. 6, st. 9
The Biglow Papers (1848–1866), Series I (1848)

“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

In a Copy of Omar Khayyam.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Variant: 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.

“What a sense of security in an old book which Time has criticised for us!”

James Russell Lowell

Variant: What a sense of security in an old book which Time has criticised for us!
Source: My Study Windows (1871), chapter "Library of Old Authors'".

“It is not the insurrections of ignorance that are dangerous, but the revolts of intelligence.”

James Russell Lowell

Democracy and Other Addresses (1886)

“They come transfigured back,
Secure from change in their high-hearted ways,
Beautiful evermore, and with the rays
Of morn on their white Shields of Expectation!”

James Russell Lowell

St. 8. <br class="br"> Ode Recited at the Harvard Commemoration http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/1169/ (July 21, 1865)

“Nature, they say, doth dote,
And cannot make a man
Save on some worn-out plan,
Repeating us by rote.”

James Russell Lowell

St. 5. <br class="br"> Ode Recited at the Harvard Commemoration http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/1169/ (July 21, 1865)

“Earth's biggest country 's gut her soul,
An' risen up earth's greatest nation.”

James Russell Lowell

No. 7.
The Biglow Papers (1848–1866), Series II (1866)

“He must be a born leader or misleader of men, or must have been sent into the world unfurnished with that modulating and restraining balance-wheel which we call a sense of humor, who, in old age, has as strong a confidence in his opinions and in the necessity of bringing the universe into conformity with them as he had in youth. In a world the very condition of whose being is that it should be in perpetual flux, where all seems mirage, and the one abiding thing is the effort to distinguish realities from appearances, the elderly man must be indeed of a singularly tough and valid fibre who is certain that he has any clarified residuum of experience, any assured verdict of reflection, that deserves to be called an opinion, or who, even if he had, feels that he is justified in holding mankind by the button while he is expounding it.”

James Russell Lowell

On Democracy (6 October 1884)

“Puritanism, believing itself quick with the seed of religious liberty, laid, without knowing it, the egg of democracy.”

James Russell Lowell

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

“It was in making education not only common to all, but in some sense compulsory on all, that the destiny of the free republics of America was practically settled.”

James Russell Lowell

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

“A marciful Providunce fashioned us holler
O' purpose thet we might our principles swaller.”

James Russell Lowell

No. 4, st. 2.
The Biglow Papers (1848–1866), Series I (1848)

“It is the tendency of all creeds, opinions, and political dogmas that have once defined themselves in institutions to become inoperative.”

James Russell Lowell

The Election in November 1860 (1860)

“His heart kep' goin' pity-pat,
But hern went pity-Zekle.”

James Russell Lowell

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

“Ef you take a sword an’ dror it,
An’ go stick a feller thru,
Guv’mint ain’t to answer for it,
God’ll send the bill to you.”

James Russell Lowell

No. 1, st. 3
The Biglow Papers (1848–1866), Series I (1848)

“I hear America sometimes playfully accused of sending you all your storms, and am in the habit of parrying the charge by alleging that we are enabled to do this because, in virtue of our protective system, we can afford to make better bad weather than anybody else. And what wiser use could we make of it than to export it in return for the paupers which some European countries are good enough to send over to us who have not attained to the same skill in the manufacture of them?”

James Russell Lowell

On Democracy (6 October 1884)

“The child is not mine as the first was,
I cannot sing it to rest,
I cannot lift it up fatherly
And bliss it upon my breast;
Yet it lies in my little one's cradle
And sits in my little one's chair,
And the light of the heaven she's gone to
Transfigures its golden hair.”

James Russell Lowell

The Changeling http://seacoastnh.com/poems/changeling2.html, st. 7 (1879)

“But John P.
Robinson, he
Sez they did n't know everythin' down in Judee.”

James Russell Lowell

No. 3
The Biglow Papers (1848–1866), Series I (1848)

“The snow had begun in the gloaming,
And busily all the night
Had been heaping field and highway
With a silence deep and white.”

James Russell Lowell

The First Snowfall http://www.bartleby.com/248/351.html, st. 1 (1849)

“The one thet fust gits mad 's 'most ollers wrong.”

James Russell Lowell

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

“In creating, the only hard thing's to begin;
A grass-blade's no easier to make than an oak,
If you've once found the way you've achieved the grand stroke.”

James Russell Lowell A Fable for Critics

Pt. I - Emerson, st. 1
A Fable for Critics (1848)

“Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it;
We are happy now because God wills it.”

James Russell Lowell

Prelude to Pt. I, st. 6
The Vision of Sir Launfal (1848)

“The question of common sense is always "What is it good for?"—a question which would abolish the rose and be answered triumphantly by the cabbage.”

James Russell Lowell

&quot;Chaucer,&quot; http://books.google.com/books?id=LOdNAAAAcAAJ&amp;q=%22The+question+of+common+sense+is+always+what+is+it+good+for+a+question+which+would+abolish+the+rose+and+be+answered+triumphantly+by+the+cabbage%22&amp;pg=PA185#v=onepage North American Review (July 1870) http://books.google.com/books?id=sAVaov3zePMC&amp;q=%22The+question+of+common+sense+is+always+what+is+it+good+for+a+question+which+would+abolish+the+rose+and+be+answered+triumphantly+by+the+cabbage%22&amp;pg=PA173#v=onepage <br class="br">My Study Windows (1871)

“For though he builds glorious temples, 'tis odd
He leaves never a doorway to get in a god.”

James Russell Lowell A Fable for Critics

A Fable for Critics (1848)

“She doeth little kindnesses
Which most leave undone, or despise.”

James Russell Lowell

My Love. iv.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“His words were simple words enough,
And yet he used them so,
That what in other mouths was rough
In his seemed musical and low.”

James Russell Lowell

The Shepherd of King Admetus http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/1170/, st. 5

“Under the yaller pines I house,
When sunshine makes 'em all sweet-scented,
An' hear among their furry boughs
The baskin' west-wind purr contented.”

James Russell Lowell

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

“We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage.”

James Russell Lowell

No. 3
The Biglow Papers (1848–1866), Series I (1848)

“Their problem was how to adapt English principles and precedents to the new conditions of American life, and they solved it with singular discretion. They put as many obstacles as they could contrive, not in the way of the people's will, but of their whim.”

James Russell Lowell

On Democracy (6 October 1884)

“The very room, coz she was in,
Seemed warm from floor to ceilin”

James Russell Lowell

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

“Tain’t by turnin’ out to hack folks
You’re agoin’ to git your right,
Nor by lookin’ down on black folks
Coz 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

No. 1, st. 6
The Biglow Papers (1848–1866), Series I (1848)

“Our papers don't purtend to print on'y wut Guv'ment choose,
An' thet insures us all to git the very best o' noose.”

James Russell Lowell

No. 3.
The Biglow Papers (1848–1866), Series II (1866)

“I first drew in New England's air, and from her hardy breast
Sucked in the tyrant-hating milk that will not let me rest.”

James Russell Lowell

"On the Capture of Certain Fugitive Slaves Near Washington" (1845)

“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)

“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. <br class="br"> Ode Recited at the Harvard Commemoration http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/1169/ (July 21, 1865)

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

James Russell Lowell

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

“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)

“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

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

James Russell Lowell

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

“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)

“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

“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)

“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)

“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)

“But life is sweet, though all that makes it sweet
Lessen like sound of friends’ departing feet;
And Death is beautiful as feet of friend
Coming 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 arise
Such natures double-darken gloomy skies.”

James Russell Lowell

Epistle to George William Curtis (1874)