Quote

Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,- Yet that scaffold sways the Future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.

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
Future
Shadow
Truth
Watches
Watch
Sways
Behinds
Scaffold
Behind
Throne
Forever
Thrones
Within
Unknown
Wrong
Keeping

More quotes by James Russell Lowell

Image
Life is constantly weighing us in very sensitive scales, and telling every one of us precisely what his real weight is to the last grain of dust.
James Russell Lowell
Image
It is good To lengthen to the last a sunny mood.
James Russell Lowell
Image
His heart kep' goin' pity-pat, But hern went pity-Zekle.
James Russell Lowell
Image
In life's small things be resolute and great To keep thy muscle trained Know'st thou when Fate Thy measure takes, or when she'll say to thee, I find thee worthy do this deed for me?
James Russell Lowell
Image
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
Image
The ultimate result of protecting fools from their folly is to fill the planet full of fools.
James Russell Lowell
Image
Ef you want peace, the thing you've gut to du Is jes' to show you're up to fightin', tu.
James Russell Lowell
Image
They talk about their Pilgrim blood, their birthright high and holy! a mountain-stream that ends in mud thinks is melancholy.
James Russell Lowell
Image
In the scale of the destinies, brawn will never weigh so mach as brain.
James Russell Lowell
Image
Reading Chaucer is like brushing through the dewy grass at sunrise.
James Russell Lowell
Image
No man can produce great things who is not thoroughly sincere in dealing with himself, who would not exchange the finest show for the poorest reality, who does not so love his work that he is not only glad to give himself for it, but finds rather a gain than a sacrifice in the surrender.
James Russell Lowell
Image
Never did Poesy appear So full of heaven to me, as when I saw how it would pierce through pride and fear To the lives of coarsest men.
James Russell Lowell
Image
Life may be given in many ways, and loyalty to truth be sealed as bravely in the closet as the field.
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
Folks never understand the folks they hate.
James Russell Lowell
Image
A weed is no more than a flower in disguise.
James Russell Lowell
Image
Our seasons have no fixed returns, Without our will they come and go At noon our sudden summer burns, Ere sunset all is snow.
James Russell Lowell
Image
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
Image
Fools, when their roof-tree falls, think it doomsday.
James Russell Lowell
Image
A great man is made up of qualities that meet or make great occasions.
James Russell Lowell