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
Poetry is something to make us wiser and better, by continually revealing those types of beauty and truth which God has set in all men’s souls.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Poetry
He gives us the very quintessence of perception.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Perception
Life is a sheet of paper white, Whereon each one of us may write His word or two, and then comes night. Greatly begin! Though thou have time But for a line, be that sublime—Not failure, but low aim, is crime.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Fail, Aspirations, Ambition, Crime, Failure, Goals, Criminals
Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Grief
If youth be a defect, it is one that we outgrow only too soon.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Youth
I don’t believe in principle, but I do in interest.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Curiosity
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
An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Reason
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
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 quiet tenderness of Chaucer—Where you almost seem to hear the hot tears falling, and the simple choking words sobbed out.
—James Russell Lowell
There is nothing so desperately monotonous as the sea, and I no longer wonder at the cruelty of pirates.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Water
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.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Reputation, Character
Children are God’s apostles, sent forth, day by day, to preach of love, and hope and peace.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Children
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
Democracy is the form of government that gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Democracy, Government
It is mediocrity which makes laws and sets mantraps and spring-guns in the realm of free song, saying thus far shalt thou go and no further.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Mediocrity
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
It is the rooted instinct in men to admire what is better and more beautiful than themselves.
—James Russell Lowell
New occasions teach new duties.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Duty
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: Ideals, Idealism
Wealth may be an excellent thing, for it means power, leisure, and liberty.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Wealth
He who ordained the Sabbath loves the poor.
—James Russell Lowell
There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Argument, Acceptance, Arguments
Ef you take a sword an’ dror it,
An’ go stick a feller thru,
Guv’ment ain’t to answer for it,
God’ll send the bill to you.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Responsibility
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: Wilderness, Experience
To make the common marvelous is the test of genius.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Genius
There is no self-delusion more fatal than that which makes the conscience dreamy with the anodyne of lofty sentiments, while the life is groveling and sensual.
—James Russell Lowell
Aspiration sees only one side of every question; possession many
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Aspirations
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 Writer
Henry David Thoreau American Philosopher
John Greenleaf Whittier American Poet, Abolitionist
Robert Frost American Poet
John Ciardi American Poet