Best 396 quotes of James Russell Lowell on MyQuotes

A beggar through the world am I, From place to place I wander by. Fill up my pilgrim's scrip for me, For Christ's sweet sake and charity.

A father of the church said that property was theft, many centuries before Proudhon was born. Bourdaloue reaffirmed it. Montesquieu was the inventor of national workshops and of the theory that the state owed every man a living. Nay, was not the church herself the first organized democracy?

A friendship counting nearly forty years is the finest kind of shade-tree I know.

Again, now, now, again Plashes the rain in heavy gouts, The crinkled lightning Seems ever brightening... And loud and long Again the thunder shouts His battle-song, - One quivering flash, One wildering crash, Followed by silence dead and dull, As if the cloud, let go, Leapt bodily below To whelm the earth in one mad overthrow, And then a total lull.

Against the windows the storm comes dashing, Through tattered foliage the hail tears crashing, The blue lightning flashes, The rapid hail clashes... The thunder is rumbling And crashing and crumbling.

A ginooine statesman should be on his guard, if he must hev beliefs, not to b'lieve 'em too hard.

A great man is made up of qualities that meet or make great occasions.

A great part of human suffering has its root in the nature of man, and not in that of his institutions.

Ah, in this world, where every guiding thread Ends suddenly in the one sure centre, death, The visionary hand of Might-have-been Alone can fill Desire's cup to the brim!

Ah, men do not know how much strength is in poise, That he goes the farthest who goes far enough.

All birds during the pairing season become more or less sentimental, and murmur soft nothings in a tone very unlike the grinding-organ repetition and loudness of their habitual song. The crow is very comical as a lover; and to hear him trying to soften his croak to the proper Saint-Preux standard has something the effect of a Mississippi boatman quoting Tennyson.

All free governments, whatever their name, are in reality governments by public opinion ; and it is on the quality of this public opinion that their prosperity depends. It is, therefore, their first duty to purify the element from which they draw the breath of life.

All share in the government of the world was denied for centuries to perhaps the ablest, certainly the most tenacious race that had ever lived in it

All that hath been majestical In life or death, since time began, Is native in the simple heart of all, The angel heat of man.

All the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.

All thoughtful men are solitary and original in themselves.

All thoughts that mold the age begin deep down within the primitive soul.

Among the lessons taught by the French revolution, there is none sadder or more striking than this--that you may make everything else out of the passions of men except a political system that will work, and that there is nothing so pitilessly and unconsciously cruel as sincerity formulated into dogma.

An angel stood and met my gaze, Through the low doorway of my tent; The tent is struck, the vision stays; I only know she came and went.

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

A nature wise With finding in itself the types of all, With watching from the dim verge of the time What things to be are visible in the gleams Thrown forward on them from the luminous past, Wise with the history of its own frail heart, With reverence and sorrow, and with love, Broad as the world, for freedom and for man.

And blessed are the horny hands of toil.

And but two ways are offered to our will, Toil with rare triumph, ease with safe disgrace, The problem still for us and all of human race.

And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light.

And the poorest twig on the elm-tree was ridged inch deep with pearl.

And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days.

AND what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune, And over it softly her warm ear lays; Whether we look, or whether we listen, We hear life murmur, or see it glisten.

And what they dare to dream of, date to do.

A poet must need be before his own age, to be even with posterity

A profound common sense is the best genius for statesmanship.

As life runs on, the road grows strange with faces new - and near the end. The milestones into headstones change, Neath every one a friend.

A sneer is the weapon of the weak.

A sneer is the weapon of the weak. Like other devil's weapons, it is always cunningly ready to our hand, and there is more poison in the handle than in the point.

As one lamp lights another, nor grows less,So nobleness enkindleth nobleness.

Aspiration sees only one side of every question; possession many.

A stray hair, by its continued irritation, may give more annoyance than a smart blow.

At the devil's booth are all things sold. Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold.

A weed is no more than a flower in disguise.

A weed is no more than a flower in disguise, Which is seen through at once, if love give a man eyes.

A wise man travels to discover himself.

A wise skepticism is the first attribute of a good critic.

A woman's love Is mighty, but a mother's heart is weak, And by its weakness overcomes.

Beauty hath no true glass, except it be in the sweet privacy of loving eyes.

Be He nowhere else, God is in all that liberates and lifts, in all that humbles, sweetens, and consoles.

Behind the dim unknown, Standeth God with the shadow, keeping watch above his own.

Be NOBLE! and the nobleness that liesIn other men, sleeping, but never dead,Will rise in majesty to meet thine own.

Better one bite at forty, of truths bitter rind, than the hot wine that gushed from the vintage of twenty.

Better to me the poor mans crust, Better the blessing of the poor, Though I turn me empty from his door; That is no true alms which the hand can hold; He gives nothing but worthless gold Who gives from a sense of duty; But he who gives a slender mite, And gives to that which is out of sight, That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty Which runs through all and doth all unite, - The hand cannot clasp the whole of his alms, The heart outstretches its eager palms, For a god goes with it and makes it store To the soul that was starving in darkness before.

Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.

Borrowed garments never keep one warm.