Quote

It is curious how tyrannical the habit of reading is, and what shifts we make to escape thinking. There is no bore we dread being left alone with so much as our own minds.

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
Thinking
Minds
Habit
Tyrannical
Alone
Shifts
Reading
Bore
Left
Bores
Much
Dread
Mind
Escape
Make
Curious

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To fail at all is to fail utterly.
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All the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.
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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.
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There are two kinds of weakness, that which breaks and that which bends.
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Not suffering, but faint heart, is worst of woes.
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Freedom needs all her poets it is they Who give her aspirations wings, And to the wiser law of music sway Her wild imaginings.
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Nature, they say, doth dote, And cannot make a man Save on some worn-out plan, Repeating us by rote.
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The greatest homage we can pay to truth, is to use it.
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Ah, in this world, where every guiding thread Ends suddenly in the one sure centre, death, The visionary hand of Might-have-been Alone can fill Desire's cup to the brim!
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Some day the soft Ideal that we wooed confronts us fiercely, foe-beset, pursued, and cries reproachful: Was it then my praise, and not myself was loved? Prove now thy truth I claim of thee the promise of thy youth.
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There comes Emerson first, whose rich words, every one, Are like gold nails in temples to hang trophies on.
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Not only around our infancy Doth heaven with all its splendors lie Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, We Sinais climb and know it not.
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Metaphor is no argument, though it be sometimes the gunpowder to drive one home, and imbed it in the memory.
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Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide.
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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 age’s drowsy blood Still shouts the inspiring sea.
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