Quotes from James Russell Lowell

Take a winter as you find him and he turns out to be a thoroughly honest fellow with no nonsense in him: and tolerating none in you, which is a great comfort in the long run.

May is a pious fraud of the almanac A ghastly parody of real Spring Shaped out of snow and breathed with eastern wind.

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide. ... And the choice goes by forever t'wixt that darkness and that light.

No man is born into the world whose work Is not born with him; there is always work, And tools to work withal, for those who will; And blessed are the horny hands of toil!

The misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never happen.

...and we take everything heartily and naturally in the right way, — for even mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or the handle.

Not but wut abstract war is horrid, I sign to thet with all my heart, But civilysation doos git forrid Sometimes, upon a powder-cart.

Ez for war I call it murder - There you hev it plain and flat I don't want to go no furder Than my Testyment for that.

For only by unlearning Wisdom comes.

And I honor the man who is willing to sink half his present repute for the freedom to think, and, when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak, Will risk t' other half for the freedom to speak.

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

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

The traitor to Humanity is the traitor most accursed; Man is more than Constitutions; better rot beneath the sod, Than be true to Church and State while we are doubly false to God.

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how.

There is no bore we dread being left alone with so much as our own minds.

To the Dandelion... My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee...

Democ'acy gives every man The right to be his own oppressor...

Ah men do not know how much strength is in poise That he goes the farthest who goes far enough.

The question of commonsense is always "what is it good for?" - a question which would abolish the rose and be answered triumphantly by the cabbage.

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

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

Talent is that which is in a man's power; genius is that in whose power a man is.

The better part of every man's education is that which he gives himself.

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