James Russell Lowell

Truth, after all, wears a different face to everybody, and it would be too tedious to wait till all were agreed.

Once to every person and nation come the moment to decide. In the conflict of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side.

Toward no crimes have men shown themselves so cold- bloodedly cruel as in punishing differences of belief.

One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning.

A weed is no more than a flower in disguise, Which is seen through at once, if love give a man eyes.

What a sense of security in an old book which time has criticized for us.

The surest plan to make a man is, think him so.

No man can produce great things who is not thoroughly sincere in dealing with himself.

It is by presence of mind in untried emergencies that the native metal of man is tested.

To educate the intelligence is to expand the horizon of its wants and desires.

Tyrants are but the spawn of Ignorance, Begotten by the slaves they trample on.

Endurance is the crowning quality, And patience all the passion of great hearts.

It is the privilege of genius that life never grows common place, as it does for the rest of us.

The riches of scholarship, the benignities of literature, defy fortune and outlive calamity. They are beyond the reach of thief or moth or rust. As they cannot be inherited, so they cannot, be alienated.

Such power there is in clear-eyed self-restraint.

True scholarship consists in knowing not what things exist, but what they mean; it is not memory but judgment.

Where one person shapes their life by precept and example, there are a thousand who have shaped it by impulse and circumstances.

If youth be a defect, it is one that we outgrow only too soon.

Blessed are they who have nothing to say and who cannot be persuaded to say it.

Creativity is not the finding of a thing, but the making something out of it after it is found.

A great man is made up of qualities that meet or make great occasions.

The soil out of which such men as he are made is good to be born on, good to live on, good to die for and to be buried in.

It is the rooted instinct in men to admire what is better and more beautiful than themselves.

Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof; it is temporary expedient, often wise in party politics, almost sure to be unwise in statesmanship.

Greatly begin. Though thou have time, but for a line, be that sublime. Not failure, but low aim is crime.

Folks never understand the folks they hate.

Not failure, but low aim, is crime.

What men prize most is a privilege, even if it be that of chief mourner at a funeral.

In creating, the only hard thing is to begin: a grass blade's no easier to make than an oak.

Incredulity robs us of many pleasures, and gives us nothing in return.

Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.

Reputation is only a candle, of wavering and uncertain flame, and easily blown out, but it is the light by which the world looks for and finds merit.

As life runs on, the road grows strange with faces new - and near the end. The milestones into headstones change, Neath every one a friend.

Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do that day, which must be done, whether you like it or not.

There is nothing so desperately monotonous as the sea, and I no longer wonder at the cruelty of pirates.

All God's angels come to us disguised.

Democracy is the form of government that gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.

Light is the symbol of truth.

Each day the world is born anew for him who takes it rightly.

A wise skepticism is the first attribute of a good critic.

There are two kinds of weakness, that which breaks and that which bends.

The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinion.

Every person born into this world their work is born with them.

A wise man travels to discover himself.

Endurance is the crowning quality And patience all the passion of great hearts.

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.

Great truths are portions of the soul of man Great souls are portions of eternity.

Metaphor is no argument, though it be sometimes the gunpowder to drive one home, and imbed it in the memory.

Freedom is the only law which genius knows.

Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character.

Compromise makes a good umbrella but a poor roof.

Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or the handle.

The mind can weave itself warmly in the cocoon of its own thoughts, and dwell a hermit anywhere.

As life runs on the road grows strange with faces new and near the end. The milestones into headstones change Neath every one a friend.

Who's not sat tense before his own heart's curtain.

There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat.

The only faith that wears well and holds its color in all weathers is that which is woven of conviction and set with the sharp mordant of experience.

The greatest homage we can pay to truth, is to use it.

Death is delightful. Death is dawn, The waking from a weary night Of fevers unto truth and light.

Children are God's Apostles, sent forth, day by day, to preach of love, and hope, and peace.

Let us be of good cheer, however, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never come.

On one issue at least, men and women agree; they both distrust women.

The mind can weave itself warmly in the cocoon of its own thoughts and dwell a hermit anywhere.

Fortune is the rod of the weak, and the staff of the brave.

A weed is no more than a flower in disguise.

Usually when people are sad, they don't do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change.

All thoughtful men are solitary and original in themselves.

An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.

A sneer is the weapon of the weak.

Evil is a far more cunning and persevering propagandist than good, for it has no inward strength, and is driven to seek countenance and sympathy.

Democracy give every man the right to be his own oppressor.

No mud can soil us but the mud we throw.

As one lamp lights another, nor grows less, So nobleness enkindleth nobleness.

Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne.

And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days.

Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.

The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinions.

The heart forgets its sorrow and ache.

All Gods angels come to us disguised.

He who is firmly seated in authority soon learns to think security, and not progress, the highest lesson in statecraft.

Fortune is the rod of the weak and the staff of the brave.

All the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.

It is mediocrity which makes laws and sets mantraps and spring-guns in the realm of free song, saying thus far shalt thou go and no further.

Fate loves the fearless.

No price is set on the lavish summer; June may be had by the poorest comer.

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how.

The eye is the notebook of the poet.

Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.

Good luck is the willing handmaid of a upright and energetic character, and conscientious observance of duty.

I have always been of the mind that in a democracy manners are the only effective weapons against the bowie-knife.

Sincerity is impossible, unless it pervade the whole being, and the pretence of it saps the very foundation of character.

True scholarship consists in knowing not what things exist, but what they mean; it is not memory but judgement.

The idol is the measure of the worshipper.

In the ocean of baseness, the deeper we get, the easier the sinking.