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The question of common sense is always: 'what is it good for?' - a question which would abolish the rose and be answered triumphantly by the cabbage.
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
Rose
Question
Common
Sense
Good
Triumphantly
Always
Cabbage
Would
Abolish
Answered
More quotes by James Russell Lowell
Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide.
James Russell Lowell
There are two kinds of weakness, that which breaks and that which bends.
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
Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes, - they were souls that stood alone, While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone, Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine, By one man's plain truth to manhood and to God's supreme design.
James Russell Lowell
They have rights who dare maintain them.
James Russell Lowell
The only conclusive evidence of a man's sincerity is that he gives himself for a principle. Words, money, all things else, are comparatively easy to give away but when a man makes a gift of his daily life and practice, it is plain that the truth, whatever it may be, has taken possession of him.
James Russell Lowell
There is no self-delusion more fatal than that which makes the conscience dreamy with the anodyne of lofty sentiments, while the life is groveling and sensual
James Russell Lowell
The sentimentalist does not think of what he does so much as of what the world will think of what he does.
James Russell Lowell
An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.
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
That pernicious sentiment, Our country, right or wrong.
James Russell Lowell
Ye come and go incessant we remain Safe in the hallowed quiets of the past Be reverent, ye who flit and are forgot, Of faith so nobly realized as this.
James Russell Lowell
I don't believe in princerple, But oh I du in interest.
James Russell Lowell
Life may be given in many ways, and loyalty to truth be sealed as bravely in the closet as the field.
James Russell Lowell
Those who love are but one step from heaven.
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
Faith in God, faith in man, faith in work: this is the short formula in which we may sum up the teachings of the founders of New England,--a creed ample enough for this life and the next.
James Russell Lowell
The New World's sons from England's breast we drew Such milk as bids remember whence we came, Proud of her past wherefrom our future grew, This window we inscribe with Raleigh's fame.
James Russell Lowell
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
And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light.
James Russell Lowell
