James Russell Lowell (1819–91) was an American poet, critic, essayist, editor, and diplomat. A celebrated man of letters in his day, he is significant for expanding public interest in literature in 19th-century America.
Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Lowell got a law degree from Harvard University. He followed Henry Wadsworth Longfellow as professor of French and Spanish at Harvard in 1855, and was American Minister in Spain 1877–80, and England, 1880–85. Lowell served as editor of the Atlantic Monthly and co-editor of the North American Review.
Lowell’s works include several volumes of verse, the satirical Biglow Papers (1848, 67,) A Fable for Critics (1848,) and memorial odes after the American Civil War. His volumes of essays include Fireside Travels (1864,) Among My Books (1870,) and My Study Window (1871.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by James Russell Lowell
Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us,
The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in,
The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us,
We bargain for the graves we lie in;
At the devil’s booth are all things sold,
Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold;
For a cap and bells our lives we pay.
Bubbles we buy with a whole soul’s tasking,
‘Tis heaven alone that is given away,
‘Tis only God may be had for the asking,
No price is set on the lavish summer;
June may be had by the poorest comer.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Money, Heaven, Prayer
The true ideal is not opposed to the real but lies in it; and blessed are the eyes that find it.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Idealism, Ideals
It is the rooted instinct in men to admire what is better and more beautiful than themselves.
—James Russell Lowell
Fate loves the fearless.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Courage, Fear
Fastidiousness is only another form of egotism; and all men who know not where to look for truth, save in the narrow well of self, will find their own image at the bottom, and mistake it for what they are seeking.
—James Russell Lowell
Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Grief
The idol is the measure of the worshipper.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: God
What a sense of security in an old book which time has criticized for us.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Literature, Reading, Books
Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof; it is temporary expedient, often wise in party politics, almost sure to be unwise in statesmanship.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Compromise
A weed is no more than a flower in disguise, Which is seen through at once, if love give a man eyes.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Gardening, Flowers
I have always been of the mind that in a democracy manners are the only effective weapons against the bowie-knife.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Manners
I would hardly change the sorrowful words of the poets for their glad ones.—Tears dampen the strings of the lyre, but they grow the more tender for it, and ring even the clearer and more ravishingly for it.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Tears
Good luck is the willing handmaid of a upright and energetic character, and conscientious observance of duty.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Luck
There is no work of genius which has not been the delight of mankind; no word of genius to which the human heart and soul have not, sooner or later, responded.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Genius
The surest plan to make a man is, think him so.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Praise
Fortune is the rod of the weak, and the staff of the brave.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Luck, Fortune
The more sympathies we gain or awaken for what is beautiful, by so much deeper will be our sympathy for that which is most beautiful, the human soul.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Sympathy
The quiet tenderness of Chaucer—Where you almost seem to hear the hot tears falling, and the simple choking words sobbed out.
—James Russell Lowell
Incredulity robs us of many pleasures, and gives us nothing in return.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Belief
Some scrap of a childish song hath often been a truer alms than all the benevolent societies could give. This is the best missionary, knowing when she may knock at the door of the most curmudgeonly hearts, without being turned away unheard. For poesy is love’s chosen apostle, and the very almoner of God. She is the home of the outcast, and the wealth of the needy.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Poetry
A poet must needs be before his own age, to be even with posterity.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Poetry
Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide; In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Decisions
They talk about their Pilgrim blood, their birthright high and holy! a mountain-stream that ends in mud thinks is melancholy.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Ancestry, Family, Ancestors
Such power there is in clear-eyed self-restraint.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Self-Control, Control
No man is born into the world whose work is not born with him. There is always work, and tools to work with, for those who will, and blessed are the horny hands of toil. The busy world shoves angrily aside the man who stands with arms akimbo until occasion tells him what to do; and he who waits to have his task marked out shall die and leave his errand unfulfilled.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Work, Industry
Careless seems the great Avenger; history’s pages but record
One death-grapple in the darkness twixt old systems and the Word;
Truth forever on the scaffold,
Wrong forever on the throne,
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.
New occasions teach new duties;
Time makes ancient good uncouth;
They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth;
Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be,
Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea,
Nor attempt the Futures portal with the Pasts blood-rusted key.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Truth
Stories now, to suit a public taste, must be half epigram, half pleasant vice.
—James Russell Lowell
In life’s small things be resolute and great
To keep thy muscle trained; know’st thou when Fate
Thy measure takes, or when she’ll say to thee,
“I find thee worthy; do this deed for me?”
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: One Step at a Time
THE SNOW had begun in the gloaming,
And busily all the night
Had been heaping field and highway
With a silence deep and white.
Every pine and fir and hemlock
Wore ermine too dear for an earl,
And the poorest twig on the elm-tree
Was ridged inch deep with pearl.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Snow
The time is ripe, and rotten-ripe, for change; then let it come.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Change
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Thomas Bailey Aldrich American Writer
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow American Poet
Dorothy Parker American Humorist, Journalist
Walt Whitman American Poet
Nathaniel Parker Willis American Poet, Playwright
John Jay Chapman American Biographer
Henry David Thoreau American Philosopher
John Greenleaf Whittier American Poet, Abolitionist
Robert Frost American Poet
John Ciardi American Poet