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It is curious how tyrannical the habit of reading is...

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
Tyrannical
Reasoning
Curious
Habit
Reading
Reason

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Here come the hum the golden bees Underneath full blossomed trees, At once with glowing fruit and flowers crowned.
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Fate loves best such syllables as are sweet and sonorous on the tongue.
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No price is set on the lavish summer June may be had by the poorest comer.
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It is not without reason that fame is awarded only after death. The cloud-dust of notoriety which follows and envelops the men who drive with the wind bewilders contemporary judgment.
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Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.
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Democracy is nothing more than an experiment in government, more likely to succeed in a new soil, but likely to be tried in all soils, which must stand or fall on its own merits as others have done before it. For there is no trick of perpetual motion in politics any more than in mechanics.
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The quiet tenderness of Chaucer, where you almost seem to hear the hot tears falling, and the simple choking words sobbed out.
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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.
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Winds wanders, and dews drip earthward Rains fall, suns rise and set Earth whirls, and all but to prosper A poor little violet.
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Large charity doth never soil, but only whitens soft white hands.
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Behind the dim unknown, Standeth God with the shadow, keeping watch above his own.
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Folks never understand the folks they hate.
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Life may be given in many ways, and loyalty to truth be sealed as bravely in the closet as the field.
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All the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.
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It is quite too common a practice, both in readers and the more superficial class of critics, to judge a book by what it is not, a matter much easier to determine than what it is.
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He gives us the very quintessence of perception,-the clearly crystalized precipitation of all that is most precious in the ferment of impression after the impertinent and obtrusive particulars have evaporated from the memory.
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Reading Chaucer is like brushing through the dewy grass at sunrise.
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What means this glory round our feet, The Magi mused, more bright than morn! And voices chanted clear and sweet, To-day the Prince of Peace is born.
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Poetry is something to make us wiser and better, by continually revealing those types of beauty and truth, which God has set in all men's souls.
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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.
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