The misfortunes hardest to bear are these which never came.
– James Russell Lowell
Light is the symbol of truth.
– James Russell Lowell
Analysis is carried into everything. Even Deity is subjected to chemical tests.
-James Russell Lowell
There is no better ballast for keeping the mind steady on its keel, and saving it from all risk of crankiness, than business.
– James Russell Lowell
Great truths are portions of the soul of man.
-James Russell Lowell
Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.
– James Russell Lowell
Things always seem fairer when we look back at them, and it is out of that inaccessible tower of the past that Longing leans and beckons.
– JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Talent is that which is in a man’s power; genius is that in whose power a man is.
– James Russell Lowell
Endurance is the crowning quality,
And patience all the passion of great hearts.
– James Russell Lowell
Sincerity is impossible, unless it pervade the whole being, and the pretense of it saps the very foundation of character.
– James Russell Lowell
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.
– James Russell Lowell
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.
– James Russell Lowell
At the devil’s booth are all things sold. Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold.
– James Russell Lowell
Things always seem fairer when we look back at them, and it is out of that inaccessible tower of the past that Longing leans and beckons.
– James Russell Lowell
There is no good arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat.
– James Russell Lowell
Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character.
– James Russell Lowell
A wise skepticism is the first attribute of a good critic.
– James Russell Lowell
No man can produce great things who is not thoroughly sincere in dealing with himself.
– James Russell Lowell
Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how.
– James Russell Lowell
Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or by the handle.
– James Russell Lowell
Nature fits all her children with something to do, he who would write and can’t write, can surely review.
– James Russell Lowell
The mind can weave itself warmly in the cocoon of its own thoughts, and dwell a hermit anywhere.
– James Russell Lowell
All the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.
– James Russell Lowell
Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.
– James Russell Lowell
Fate loves the fearless.
– James Russell Lowell
A wise man travels to discover himself.
– James Russell Lowell
Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.
– James Russell Lowell
A sneer is the weapon of the weak.
– James Russell Lowell