James Russell Lowell's Quotes

Fortune is the rod of the weak, and the staff of the brave.

Greatly begin. Though thou have time, but for a line, be that sublime. Not failure, but low aim is crime.

If youth be a defect, it is one that we outgrow only too soon.

Incredulity robs us of many pleasures, and gives us nothing in return.

It is the privilege of genius that life never grows common place, as it does for the rest of us.

No man can produce great things who is not thoroughly sincere in dealing with himself.

Reputation is only a candle, of wavering and uncertain flame, and easily blown out, but it is the light by which the world looks for and finds merit.

The eye is the notebook of the poet.

The surest plan to make a man is, think him so.

There are two kinds of weakness, that which breaks and that which bends.

True scholarship consists in knowing not what things exist, but what they mean; it is not memory but judgment.

Truth, after all, wears a different face to everybody, and it would be too tedious to wait till all were agreed.

What a sense of security in an old book which time has criticized for us.

What men prize most is a privilege, even if it be that of chief mourner at a funeral.

Where one person shapes their life by precept and example, there are a thousand who have shaped it by impulse and circumstances.

One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning.

Light is the symbol of truth.

Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do that day, which must be done, whether you like it or not.

Usually when people are sad, they don't do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change.

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

Creativity is not the finding of a thing, but the making something out of it after it is found.

Fate loves the fearless.

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

Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how.

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

Children are God's Apostles, sent forth, day by day, to preach of love, and hope, and peace.

Toward no crimes have men shown themselves so cold- bloodedly cruel as in punishing differences of belief.

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

The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinions.

Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.

Let us be of good cheer, however, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never come.

Not failure, but low aim, is crime.

Good luck is the willing handmaid of a upright and energetic character, and conscientious observance of duty.

Blessed are they who have nothing to say and who cannot be persuaded to say it.

On one issue at least, men and women agree; they both distrust women.

Every person born into this world their work is born with them.

Freedom is the only law which genius knows.

The heart forgets its sorrow and ache.

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.