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It is the rooted instinct in men to admire what is better and more beautiful than themselves.
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
Rooted
Intuition
Admire
Instinct
Beautiful
Better
Men
More quotes by James Russell Lowell
God is not dumb, that he should speak no more If thou hast wanderings in the wilderness And find'st not Sinai, 'tis thy soul is poor.
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
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
They are slaves who fear to speak For the fallen and the weak They are slaves who will not choose Hatred, scoffing, and abuse, Rather than in silence shrink From the truth they needs must think They are slaves who dare not be In the right with two or three.
James Russell Lowell
In the storm, like a prophet o'ermaddened, Thou singest and tossest thy branches Thy heart with the terror is gladdened, Thou forebodest the dread avalanches.... In the calm thou o'erstretchest the valleys With thine arms, as if blessings imploring, Like an old king led forth from his palace, When his people to battle are pouring.
James Russell Lowell
Evil springs up, and flowers, and bears no seed, And feeds the green earth with its swift decay, Leaving it richer for the growth of truth.
James Russell Lowell
The pine is the mother of legends.
James Russell Lowell
The only faith that wears well and holds its color in all weathers is that which is woven of conviction and set with the sharp mordant of experience.
James Russell Lowell
Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof.
James Russell Lowell
We look at death through the cheap-glazed windows of the flesh, and believe him the monster which the flawed and cracked glass represents him.
James Russell Lowell
Incredulity robs us of many pleasures, and gives us nothing in return.
James Russell Lowell
To win the secret of a weed's plain heart.
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
The time is ripe, and rotten-ripe, for change.
James Russell Lowell
The pressure of public opinion is like the pressure of the atmosphere you can't see it - but all the same, it is sixteen pounds to the square inch.
James Russell Lowell
A weed is no more than a flower in disguise.
James Russell Lowell
Attention is the stuff that memory is made of, and memory is accumulated genius.
James Russell Lowell
When I was a beggarly boy, And lived in a cellar damp, I had not a friend nor a toy, But I had Aladdin's lamp.
James Russell Lowell
Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide.
James Russell Lowell
He gives us the very quintessence of perception,-the clearly crystalized precipitation of all that is most precious in the ferment of impression after the impertinent and obtrusive particulars have evaporated from the memory.
James Russell Lowell
