The traitor to Humanity is the traitor most accursed; Man is more than Constitutions; better rot beneath the sod, Than be true to Church and State while we are doubly false to God.


James Russell Lowell

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More James Russell Lowell

As life runs on, the road grows strange with faces new - and near the end. The milestones into heads...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Careless seems the great Avenger; history’s pages but record
One death-grapple in the darknes...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Be NOBLE! and the nobleness that liesIn other men, sleeping, but never dead,Will rise in majesty to ...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
As one lamp lights another, nor grows less,So nobleness enkindleth nobleness.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
When I could not sleep for cold I had fire enough in my brain, And builded with roofs of gold ...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Endurance is the crowning quality, And patience all the passion of great hearts
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
He mastered whatever was not worth the knowing.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
What a sense of security in an old book which time has criticized for us.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
The rich man's sons inherits cares; The bank may break, the factory burn, A breath may burst h...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Those who know the truth are not equal to those who love it Confucius All truth is safe and nothing ...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Every person born into this world their work is born with them.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Life is the jailer, death the angel sent to draw the unwilling bolts and set us free.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
But life is sweet, though all that makes it sweet. Lessen like sound of friends departing feet; And ...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
It is the privilege of genius that to it life never grows commonplace as to the rest of us.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
The only faith that wears well and holds its color in all weathers is that which is woven of convic...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Greatly begin! Though thou have time But for a line, be that sublime-- Not failure, but low a...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
The surest plan to make a man is, think him so.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
In the ocean of baseness, the deeper we get, the easier the sinking.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
The foolish and the dead never change their opinions.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
For the whole year long I see
All the wonders of faithful Nature
Still worked for the love of ...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Endurance is the crowning quality...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
He gives us the very quintessence of perception,
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
It is not the insurrections of ignorance that are dangerous, but the revolts of the intelligence.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
The mind can weave itself warmly in the cocoon of its own thoughts, and dwell a hermit anywhere.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Some day the soft Ideal that we wooed confronts us fiercely, foe-beset, pursued, and cries reproachf...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
The true ideal is not opposed to the real but lies in it; and blessed are the eyes that find it.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
I have always been of the mind that in a democracy manners are the only effective weapons against th...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Good luck is the willing handmaid of a upright and energetic character, and conscientious observance...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
True scholarship consists in knowing not what things exist, but what they mean; it is not memory but...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
There is no self-delusion more fatal than that which makes the conscience dreamy with the anodyne of...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or by the han...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Incredulity robs us of many pleasures, and gives us nothing in return.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
The question of common sense is what is it good for? A question which would abolish the rose and be ...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
What men prize most is a privilege, even if it be that of chief mourner at a funeral.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Not failure, but low aim, is crime.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Such power there is in clear-eyed self-restraint.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
They are slaves who fear to speak, for the fallen and the weak.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
The eye is the notebook of the poet.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Greatly begin. Though thou have time, but for a line, be that sublime . Not failure, but low aim is ...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
To educate the intelligence is to expand the horizon of its wants and desires.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Democracy give every man the right to be his own oppressor.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide; In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for ...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
I don't believe in principle, but I do in interest.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
A wise skepticism is the first attribute of a good critic.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
A sneer is the weapon of the weak.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
The only faith that wears well and holds its color in all weathers is that which is woven of convict...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
The brain can be easy to buy, but the heart never comes to market.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Sorrow is the great idealizer.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Sentiment is intellectualized emotion; emotion precipitated, as it were, in pretty crystals by the f...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do that day, which must be done, ...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a singl...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
The idol is the measure of the worshipper.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
It is the privilege of genius that life never grows common place, as it does for the rest of us.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Fortune is the rod of the weak, and the staff of the brave.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Let us be of good cheer, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never happ...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
A reading machine, always wound up and going, he mastered whatever was not worth the knowing.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
THE SNOW had begun in the gloaming,
And busily all the night
Had been heaping field and highwa...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
There are two kinds of weakness, that which breaks and that which bends.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
It is mediocrity which makes laws and sets mantraps and spring-guns in the realm of free song, sayin...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Light is the symbol of truth.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
It is the rooted instinct in men to admire what is better and more beautiful than themselves.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
There is nothing so desperately monotonous as the sea, and I no longer wonder at the cruelty of pira...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
They talk about their Pilgrim blood, their birthright high and holy! a mountain-stream that ends in ...
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
Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us;
The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in,
The ...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Gineral C. is a dreffle smart man: He's been on all sides that give places or pelf; But consis...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
And but two ways are offered to our will, Toil with rare triumph, ease with safe disgrace, The...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Communism means barbarism.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
"What means this glory round our feet," The Magi mused, "more bright than morn!" And voices ch...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Sincerity is impossible, unless it pervades the whole being, and the pretence of it saps the very fo...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
The thing we long for, that we are For one transcendent moment.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
He seemed a cherub who had lost his way And wandered hither, so his stay With us was short, an...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
What visionary tints the year puts on, When falling leaves falter through motionless air Or nu...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
The future works out great men's destinies; The present is enough for common souls, Who, never...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
A beggar through the world am I, From place to place I wander by. Fill up my pilgrim's scrip f...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Laborin' man an' laborin' woman Hev one glory an' one shame; Ev'ything thet's done inhuman ...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Democ'acy gives every man A right to be his own oppressor.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
We remain Safe in the hallowed quiets of the past.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Be noble! And the nobleness that lies in other men, sleeping, but never dead, will rise in majesty t...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
It is by presence of mind in untried emergencies that the native metal of man is tested.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof; it is temporary expedient, often wise in party po...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
No price is set on the lavish summer; June may be had by the poorest comer.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then Heaven tries eart...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
A woman's love Is mighty, but a mother's heart is weak, And by its weakness overcomes.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
In general those who nothing have to say Contrive to spend the longest time in doing it.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
It is good To lengthen to the last a sunny mood.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Tiny Salmoneus of the air His mimic bolts the firefly threw.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Listen! O, listen! Here come the hum the golden bees Underneath full blossomed trees, A...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
The apprehension of approaching evil has hurried many into the utmost danger.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Idleness induces caprice.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
A crime in which many are implicated goes unpunished.
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
Toward no crimes have men shown themselves so cold- bloodedly cruel as in punishing differences of b...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinions.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal claim.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
O chime of sweet Saint Charity, Peal soon that Easter morn When Christ for all shall risen be,...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Her new bark is worse than ten times her old bite.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Sentiment is intellectualized emotion, emotion precipitated, as it were, in pretty crystals by the ...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Two meanings have our lightest fantasies, One of the flesh, and of the spirit one.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Not what we give, but what we share,-- For the gift without the giver is bare.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
He who esteems the Virginia reel A bait to draw saints from their spiritual weal, And regards ...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Toward no crime have men shown themselves so cold-bloodedly cruel as in punishing differences of bel...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
The heart forgets its sorrow and ache.
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
Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof; it is temporary expedient, often wise in party po...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Who's not sat tense before his own heart's curtain.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
The greatest homage we can pay to truth, is to use it.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Democracy is the form of government that gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Reputation is only a candle, of wavering and uncertain flame, and easily blown out, but it is the li...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Endurance is the crowning quality, And patience all the passion of great hearts.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Fate loves the fearless.
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
Where one person shapes their life by precept and example, there are a thousand who have shaped it b...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
A great man is made up of qualities that meet or make great occasions.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Freedom is the only law which genius knows.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Children are God's Apostles, sent forth, day by day, to preach of love, and hope, and peace.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Our seasons have no fixed returns, Without our will they come and go; At noon our sudden summe...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
So we're all right, an' I, for one, Don't think our cause'll lose in vally By rammin' Scriptur...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
They are slaves who fear to speak For the fallen and the weak; . . . . They are slaves w...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
An angel stood and met my gaze, Through the low doorway of my tent; The tent is struck, the vi...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Winds wanders, and dews drip earthward; Rains fall, suns rise and set; Earth whirls, and all b...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Violet! sweet violet! Thine eyes are full of tears; Are they wet Even yet With ...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
In life's small things be resolute and great To keep thy muscle trained: knowst thou when Fate ...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
It takes a mind like Dannel's, fact, ez big ez all ou'doors To find out thet it looks like rain ar...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
My gran'ther's rule was safer 'n 't is to crow: Don't never prophesy--onless ye know.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Aspiration sees only one side of every question; possession, many.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Let us be of good cheer, however, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which ...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
That cause is strong which has not a multitude, but one strong man behind it.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
O wild and wondrous midnight, There is a might in thee To make the charmed body Almost l...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
This imputation of inconsistency is one to which every sound politician and every honest thinker mus...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character. - Among My Bo...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Daily with souls that cringe and plot, We Sinais climb and know it not.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
For there's nothing we read of in torture's inventions, Like a well-meaning dunce, with the best o...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
He gives us the very quintessence of perception.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
The fireflies o'er the meadow In pulses come and go.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Folks never understand the folks they hate.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this-that you are dreadfully like other people.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this, that you are dreadfully like other people.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Truth, after all, wears a different face to everybody, and it would be too tedious to wait till all ...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
They are slaves who fear to speak,
For the fallen and the weak.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
There is no good arguing with the inevitible. The only argument available with an east wind is to pu...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or the handle...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Democracy is that form of society, no matter what its political classification, in which every man h...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Creativity is not the finding of a thing, but the making something out of it after it is found.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
All the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
A poet must need be before his own age, to be even with posterity.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
As life runs on, the road grows strange with faces new -- and near the end. The milestones into head...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Blessed are they who have nothing to say and who cannot be persuaded to say it.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
It is marvellous in its mastery over that delightfully fortuitous inconsequence that is the adamanti...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
If youth be a defect, it is one that we outgrow only too soon.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
The misfortunes hardest to bear are these which never came.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Sentiment is intellectualized emotion; emotion precipitated, as it were, in pretty crystals by the f...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Sentiment is intellectualized emotion; emotion precipitated, as it were, in pretty crystals by the...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Nursed by stern men with empires in their brains.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Of my merit On that pint you yourself may jedge: All is, I never drink no sperit, Nor I ...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Oh, Washington! thou hero, patriot sage, Friend of all climes, and pride of every age!
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
The purely Great Whose soul no siren passion could unsphere, Thou nameless, now a power and mi...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
If youth be a defect, it is one that we outgrow only too soon
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
O chime of sweet Saint Charity, Peal soon that Easter morn When Christ for all shall risen be, And i...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
A poet must need be before his own age, to be even with posterity
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Poetry is something to make us wiser and better, by continually revealing those types of beauty and ...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Wealth may be an excellent thing, for it means power, and it means leisure, it means liberty.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
All kin' o' smily round the lips, / An' teary round the lashes.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Let us be of good cheer, however, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which n...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Children are God's Apostles, sent forth, day by day, to preach of love, and hope and peace
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this - that you are dreadfully like other people
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Light is the symbol of truth
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Be noble! and the nobleness that lies In other men, sleeping, but never dead, Will rise in ma...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Thet tells the story! Thet's wut we shall git By tryin' squirtguns on the burnin' Pit; For th...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Sence I've ben here, I've hired a chap to look about for me, To git me a transplantable an' thrift...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
The Don Quixote of one generation may live to hear himself called the savior of society by the next...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
A great man is made up of qualities that meet or make great occasions.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Behind the dim unknown, Standeth God with the shadow, keeping watch above his own.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Not caring, so that sumpter-horse, the back Be hung with gaudy trappings, in what course Yea, ...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
The very room, coz she was in, Seemed warm f'om floor to ceilin'.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
No man is born into the world whose work Is not born with him: there is always work, And tool...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Puritanism, believing itself quick with the seed of religious liberty, laid, without knowing it, th...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Endurance is the crowning quality, And patience all the passion of great hearts.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is ...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth; They must upward still and onward...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
From lower to the higher next, Not to the top, is Nature's text; And embryo good, to reach ful...
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
This goin' ware glory waits ye haint one agreeable feetur.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
With bated breath we offer wicked vows.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Who will think that the gods can be insulted with impunity?
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Villany reduces those whom it defiles to the same level.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
The shadow of a mighty name.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Regarding nothing as done, while ought remained to be done.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Patience revels in misfortunes.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL