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.)
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Each day the world is born anew for him who takes it rightly.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Morning
Sorrow is the great idealizer.
—James Russell Lowell
The surest plan to make a man is, think him so.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Praise
The only faith that wears well and holds its color in all weathers is that which is woven of conviction and set with the sharp mordant of experience.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Belief, Faith
Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this: That you are dreadfully like other people.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Equality
One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Experience
Whom the heart of man shuts out, Sometimes the heart of God takes in.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Faith, God
Endurance is the crowning quality, and patience all the passion of great hearts.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Perseverance, Patience, Persistence
All God’s angels come to us disguised.
—James Russell Lowell
Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Procrastination, Inaction, Goodness, Getting Going, Helping
That best academy, a mother’s knee.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Mothers, Mother
As one lamp lights another, nor grows less,
So nobleness enkindleth nobleness.
—James Russell Lowell
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
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
Let us be of good cheer, however, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never come.
—James Russell Lowell
A reading machine, always wound up and going, he mastered whatever was not worth the knowing.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Knowledge
Reputation is in itself only a farthing-candle, of wavering and uncertain flame, and easily blown out, but it is the light by which the world looks for and finds merit.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Self-Discovery, Reputation
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
The intellect has only one failing, which, to be sure, is a very considerable one. — It has no conscience. Napoleon is the readiest instance of this. If his heart had borne any proportion to his brain, he had been one of the greatest men in all history.
—James Russell Lowell
It is the rooted instinct in men to admire what is better and more beautiful than themselves.
—James Russell Lowell
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
There is no better ballast for keeping the mind steady on its keel, and saving it from all risk of crankiness, than business.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Business
Good luck is the willing handmaid of a upright and energetic character, and conscientious observance of duty.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Luck
The eye is the notebook of the poet.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Poetry
The mind can weave itself warmly in the cocoon of its own thoughts, and dwell a hermit anywhere.
—James Russell Lowell
Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or by the handle.
—James Russell Lowell
Talent is that which is in a man’s power; genius is that in whose power a man is.
—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
He gives us the very quintessence of perception.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Perception
A stray hair, by its continued irritation, may give more annoyance than a smart blow.
—James Russell Lowell
Not what we give, but what we share,– For the gift without the giver is bare.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Giving
Fashion must be forever new, or she becomes insipid.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Fashion
They are slaves who fear to speak, for the fallen and the weak.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Character
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