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Stories now, to suit a public taste, must be half epigram, half pleasant vice.

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
Vices
Taste
Public
Epigram
Half
Epigrams
Stories
Suit
Must
Vice
Suits
Pleasant

More quotes by James Russell Lowell

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Darkness is strong, and so is Sin, But surely God endures forever!
James Russell Lowell
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Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne.
James Russell Lowell
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A nature wise With finding in itself the types of all, With watching from the dim verge of the time What things to be are visible in the gleams Thrown forward on them from the luminous past, Wise with the history of its own frail heart, With reverence and sorrow, and with love, Broad as the world, for freedom and for man.
James Russell Lowell
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To put more faith in lies and hate than truth and love, is the true atheism.
James Russell Lowell
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That cause is strong which has, not a multitude, but one strong man behind it.
James Russell Lowell
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The material of thought re-acts upon the thought itself.
James Russell Lowell
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Men! whose boast it is that ye Come of fathers brave and free, If there breathe on earth a slave, Are ye truly free and brave?
James Russell Lowell
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Incredulity robs us of many pleasures, and gives us nothing in return.
James Russell Lowell
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The future works out great men's destinies The present is enough for common souls, Who, never looking forward, are indeed Mere clay wherein the footprints of their age Are petrified forever.
James Russell Lowell
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Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof.
James Russell Lowell
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Our American republic will endure only as long as the ideas of the men who founded it continue dominant.
James Russell Lowell
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Who is it needs such flawless shafts as fate? What archer of his arrows is so choice, or hits the white so surely?
James Russell Lowell
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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
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Certainly it is no shame to a man that he should be as nice about his country as his sweetheart, yet it would not be wise to hold everyone an enemy who could not see her with our own enchanted eyes.
James Russell Lowell
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There comes Emerson first, whose rich words, every one, Are like gold nails in temples to hang trophies on.
James Russell Lowell
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The time is ripe, and rotten-ripe, for change.
James Russell Lowell
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Let us be of good cheer, however, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never come.
James Russell Lowell
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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
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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
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A poet must need be before his own age, to be even with posterity
James Russell Lowell