For the whole year long I see
All the wonders of faithful Nature
Still worked for the love of me;
Winds wander, and dews drip earthward,
Rain falls, suns rise and set,
Earth whirls, and all but to prosper
A poor little violet.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Nature
He who keeps his faith only, cannot be discrowned.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Faith
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
In creating, the only hard thing is to begin: a grass-blade’s no easier to make than an oak.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Creation
Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Procrastination, Deeds, Getting Going, Helping, Inaction, Good Deeds, Goodness
Wealth may be an excellent thing, for it means power, leisure, and liberty.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Wealth
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
Not what we give, but what we share,—For the gift without the giver is bare.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Gift, Giving
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
There is a law of forces which hinders bodies from sinking beyond a certain depth in the sea; but in the ocean of baseness the deeper we get the easier the sinking.
—James Russell Lowell
Incredulity robs us of many pleasures, and gives us nothing in return.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Belief
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
To make the common marvelous is the test of genius.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Genius
A stray hair, by its continued irritation, may give more annoyance than a smart blow.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Trifles
Good luck is the willing handmaid of a upright and energetic character, and conscientious observance of duty.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Luck
Stories now, to suit a public taste, must be half epigram, half pleasant vice.
—James Russell Lowell
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: Flowers, Gardening
It is the privilege of genius that life never grows common place, as it does for the rest of us.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Genius
One day, with life and heart, is more than time enough to find a world.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Persistence
What a sense of security in an old book which time has criticized for us.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Books, Reading, Literature
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, Arguments, Acceptance
Aspiration sees only one side of every question; possession many.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Aspirations
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
Borrowed garments never keep one warm. A curse goes with them, as with Harry Gill’s blankets. Nor can one get smuggled goods safely into kingdom come. How lank and pitiful does one of these gentry look, after posterity’s customs-officers have had the plucking of him!
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Plagiarism
Her new bark is worse than ten times her old bite.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Faults
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: Industry, Work
Some day the soft Ideal that we wooed confronts us fiercely, foe-beset, pursued, and cries reproachful: “Was it then my praise, and not myself was loved? Prove now thy truth; I claim of thee the promise of thy youth.”
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Ideals, Idealism
A wise skepticism is the first attribute of a good critic.
—James Russell Lowell
Topics: Critics, Criticism
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
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
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