Quote

In creating, the only hard thing is to begin: a grass blade's no easier to make than an oak.

James Russell Lowell

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

James Russell Lowell
Age: 72 †
Born: 1819
Born: February 22
Died: 1891
Died: August 12
Diplomat
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Poet
Writer
Cambridge
Massachusetts
Hard
Grass
Thing
Plant
Make
Begin
Creativity
Creating
Easier
Oaks
Inspirational
Blade
Play
Blades

More quotes by James Russell Lowell

Image
Metaphor is no argument, though it be sometimes the gunpowder to drive one home, and imbed it in the memory.
James Russell Lowell
Image
Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide, In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side Some great cause, some great decision, offering each the bloom or blight, And the choice goes by forever, ’twixt that darkness and that light.
James Russell Lowell
Image
No sincere desire of doing good need make an enemy of a single human being that philanthropy has surely a flaw in it which cannot sympathize with the oppressor equally as with the oppressed.
James Russell Lowell
Image
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
Image
Freedom needs all her poets it is they Who give her aspirations wings, And to the wiser law of music sway Her wild imaginings.
James Russell Lowell
Image
Fortune is the rod of the weak, and the staff of the brave.
James Russell Lowell
Image
Ah, in this world, where every guiding thread Ends suddenly in the one sure centre, death, The visionary hand of Might-have-been Alone can fill Desire's cup to the brim!
James Russell Lowell
Image
A profound common sense is the best genius for statesmanship.
James Russell Lowell
Image
It is curious how tyrannical the habit of reading is...
James Russell Lowell
Image
To fail at all is to fail utterly.
James Russell Lowell
Image
A sneer is the weapon of the weak.
James Russell Lowell
Image
A word once vulgarized can never be rehabilitated.
James Russell Lowell
Image
Greatly begin. Though thou have time, but for a line, be that sublime. Not failure, but low aim is crime.
James Russell Lowell
Image
A great man is made up of qualities that meet or make great occasions.
James Russell Lowell
Image
Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.
James Russell Lowell
Image
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
Image
All free governments, whatever their name, are in reality governments by public opinion and it is on the quality of this public opinion that their prosperity depends. It is, therefore, their first duty to purify the element from which they draw the breath of life.
James Russell Lowell
Image
The child is not mine as the first was, I cannot sing it to rest, I cannot lift it up fatherly And bliss it upon my breast Yet it lies in my little one's cradle And sits in my little one's chair, And the light of the heaven she's gone to Transfigures its golden hair.
James Russell Lowell
Image
It is quite too common a practice, both in readers and the more superficial class of critics, to judge a book by what it is not, a matter much easier to determine than what it is.
James Russell Lowell
Image
Making one object, in outward or inward nature, more holy to a single heart is reward enough for a life for the more sympathies we gain or awaken for what is beautiful, by so much deeper will be our sympathy for that which is most beautiful,--the human soul!
James Russell Lowell