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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
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James Russell Lowell
Age: 72 †
Born: 1819
Born: February 22
Died: 1891
Died: August 12
Diplomat
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Poet
Writer
Cambridge
Massachusetts
Poor
Compromise
Often
Commitment
Makes
Wise
Statesmanship
Political
Wisdom
Expedient
Good
Almost
Unwise
Politics
Umbrella
Sure
Roof
Party
Temporary
More quotes by James Russell Lowell
Great truths are portions of the soul of man Great souls are portions of eternity.
James Russell Lowell
One learns more metaphysics from a single temptation than from all the philosophers.
James Russell Lowell
It is the vain endeavor to make ourselves what we are not that has strewn history with so many broken purposes and lives left in the rough.
James Russell Lowell
Whoever can endure unmixed delight, whoever can tolerate music and painting and poetry all in one, whoever wishes to be rid of thought and to let the busy anvils of the brain be silent for a time, let him read in the Faery Queen.
James Russell Lowell
A ginooine statesman should be on his guard, if he must hev beliefs, not to b'lieve 'em too hard.
James Russell Lowell
I would hardly change the sorrowful words of the poets for their glad ones. Tears dampen the strings of the lyre, but they grow the tensor for it, and ring even the clearer and more ravishingly.
James Russell Lowell
The riches of scholarship, the benignities of literature, defy fortune and outlive calamity. They are beyond the reach of thief or moth or rust. As they cannot be inherited, so they cannot, be alienated.
James Russell Lowell
What visionary tints the year puts on, When falling leaves falter through motionless air Or numbly cling and shiver to be gone! How shimmer the low flats and pastures bare, As with her nectar Hebe Autumn fills The bowl between me and those distant hills, And smiles and shakes abroad her misty, tremulous hair!
James Russell Lowell
Good heavens, of what un costly material is our earthly happiness composed... if we only knew it. What incomes have we not had from a flower, and how unfailing are the dividends of the seasons.
James Russell Lowell
I willingly confess to so great a partiality for trees as tempts me to respect a man in exact proportion to his respect for them.
James Russell Lowell
Praise follows truth afar off, and only overtakes her at the grave plausibility clings to her skirts and holds her back till then
James Russell Lowell
That love for one, from which there doth not spring Wide love for all, is but a worthless thing.
James Russell Lowell
The wisest man could ask no more of fate Than to be simple, modest, manly, true, Safe from the many, honored by the few Nothing to court in Church, or World, or State, But inwardly in secret to be great.
James Russell Lowell
Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave.
James Russell Lowell
Over our manhood bend the skies Against our fallen and traitor lives The great winds utter prophecies With our faint hearts the mountain strives, Its arms outstretched, the druid wood Waits with its benedicite And to our ages drowsy blood Still shouts the inspiring sea.
James Russell Lowell
Most men make the voyage of life as if they carried sealed orders which they were not to open till they were fairly in mid-ocean.
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
The discontent with the existing order of things pervaded the atmosphere, wherever the conditions were favorable, long before Columbus, seeking the back door of Asia, found himself knocking at the front door of America.
James Russell Lowell
A wise man travels to discover himself.
James Russell Lowell
Reading Chaucer is like brushing through the dewy grass at sunrise.
James Russell Lowell
