Quote

One learns more metaphysics from a single temptation than from all the philosophers.

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
Single
Metaphysics
Learns
Philosophers
Temptation
Philosopher

More quotes by 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
Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust, Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 't is prosperous to be just Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside, Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified.
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
Image
Life seems a jest of Fate's contriving.
James Russell Lowell
Image
There is surely room for yet another schoolmaster when a score of seers advertise themselves in Boston newspapers.
James Russell Lowell
Image
Not as all other women are Is she that to my soul is dear Her glorious fancies come from far, Beneath the silver evening star, And yet her heart is ever near.
James Russell Lowell
Image
The pale and quiet moon Makes her calm forehead bare, And the last fragments of the storm, Like shattered rigging from a fight at sea, Silent and few, are drifting over me.
James Russell Lowell
Image
What a man pays for bread and butter is worth its market value, and no more. What he pays for love's sake is gold indeed, which has a lure for angels' eyes, and rings well upon God's touchstone.
James Russell Lowell
Image
A great part of human suffering has its root in the nature of man, and not in that of his institutions.
James Russell Lowell
Image
Wut 's words to them whose faith an' truth On war's red techstone rang true metal Who ventered life an' love an' youth For the gret prize o' death in battle?
James Russell Lowell
Image
The material of thought re-acts upon the thought itself.
James Russell Lowell
Image
A stray hair, by its continued irritation, may give more annoyance than a smart blow.
James Russell Lowell
Image
Who knows whither the clouds have fled? In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake And the eyes forget the tears they have shed, The heart forgets its sorrow and ache.
James Russell Lowell
Image
Fate loves best such syllables as are sweet and sonorous on the tongue.
James Russell Lowell
Image
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
Image
Not what we give, but what we share, for the gift without the giver is bare.
James Russell Lowell
Image
One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning.
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
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
Those who know the truth are not equal to those who love it Confucius All truth is safe and nothing else is safe, but he who keeps back truth, or withholds it from men, from motives of expediency, is either a coward or a criminal.
James Russell Lowell