Quotes by James Russell Lowell
Usually when people are sad, they don't do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change.
He who is firmly seated in authority soon learns to think security, and not progress, the highest lesson in statecraft.
The eye is the notebook of the poet.
It is by presence of mind in untried emergencies that the native metal of man is tested.
A great man is made up of qualities that meet or make great occasions.
Fate loves the fearless.
There is nothing so desperately monotonous as the sea, and I no longer wonder at the cruelty of pirates.
Not failure, but low aim, is crime.
Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.
And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days.
There are two kinds of weakness, that which breaks and that which bends.
No man can produce great things who is not thoroughly sincere in dealing with himself.
Death is delightful. Death is dawn, The waking from a weary night Of fevers unto truth and light.
Let us be of good cheer, however, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never come.
An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.
Sincerity is impossible, unless it pervade the whole being, and the pretence of it saps the very foundation of character.
Democracy is the form of government that gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.
Children are God's Apostles, sent forth, day by day, to preach of love, and hope, and peace.
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.
The surest plan to make a man is, think him so.
The greatest homage we can pay to truth, is to use it.
Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how.
Each day the world is born anew for him who takes it rightly.
On one issue at least, men and women agree; they both distrust women.
Greatly begin. Though thou have time, but for a line, be that sublime. Not failure, but low aim is crime.
