Quotes from James Russell Lowell

O wild and wondrous midnight, There is a might in thee To make the charmed body Almost like spirit be, And give it some faint glimpses Of immortality.

Good heavens, of what uncostly material is our earthly happiness composed... if we only knew it. What incomes have we not had from a flower, and how unfailing are the dividends of the seasons.

No, never say nothin' without you're compelled tu,An' then don't say nothin' thet you can be held tu.

'T is heaven alone that is given away, 'T is only God may be had for the asking...

In such cases the imagination is undoubtedly its own doppelgänger, and sees nothing more than the projection of its own deceit. But I am puzzled, I confess, to explain the appearance of the first ghost, especially among men who thought death to be the end-all here below.

It's 'most enough to make a deacon swear.

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

Whatever its origin, a belief in spirits seems to have been common to all the nations of the ancient world who have left us any record of themselves. Ghosts began to walk early, and are walking still, in spite of the shrill cock-crow of wir haben ja aufgeklärt.

Ef you take a sword an' dror it, An' go stick a feller thru, Guv'ment ain't to answer for it, God'll send the bill to you.

A poet must need be before his own age, to be even with posterity.

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

But all God's angels come to us disguised...

Sentiment is intellectualized emotion; emotion precipitated, as it were, in pretty crystals by the fancy.

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

They are slaves who fear to speak,For the fallen and the weak.

They talk about their Pilgrim blood, Their birthright high and holy A mountain-stream that ends in mud Methinks is melancholy.

This imputation of inconsistency is one to which every sound politician and every honest thinker must sooner or later subject himself. The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinion.

Wealth may be an ancient thing, for it means power, it means leisure, it means liberty.

Fate loves the fearless.

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

AND what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune, And over it softly her warm ear lays; Whether we look, or whether we listen, We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;

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

A wise man travels to discover himself.

Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this, that you are dreadfully like other people.