The collection / 226 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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226 results · Page 7 of 10Play this collection ▷

01c. 1855 AD

To have any chance of lasting, a book must satisfy, not merely some fleeting fancy of the day, but a constant longing and hunger of human nature.

James Russell Lowell / quote

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02c. 1855 AD

To make the common marvellous, as if it were a revelation, is the test of genius.

James Russell Lowell / quote

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03c. 1855 AD

Truth is quite beyond the reach of satire.

James Russell Lowell / quote

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04c. 1855 AD

Verse itself is an absurdity except as an expression of some higher movement of the mind, or as an expedient to lift other minds to the same ideal level.

James Russell Lowell / quote

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05c. 1855 AD

We never can say why we love, but only that we love. The heart is ready enough at feigning excuses for all that it does or imagines of wrong; but ask it to give a reason for any of its beautiful and divine motions, and it can only look upward and be dumb.

James Russell Lowell / quote

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06c. 1855 AD

We seek but half the causes of our deeds, / Seeking them only in the outer life, / And heedless of the encircling spirit-world, / Which, though unseen, is felt, and sows in us / All germs of pure and world-wide purposes.

James Russell Lowell / quote

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07c. 1855 AD

What a sense of security is in an old book which Time has criticised for us!

James Russell Lowell / quote

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08c. 1855 AD

Where one man shapes his life by precept and example, there are a thousand who have it shaped for them by impulse and by circumstances.

James Russell Lowell / quote

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09c. 1855 AD

With every anguish of our earthly part the spirit's sight grows clearer; this was meant when Jesus touched the blind man's lids with clay.

James Russell Lowell / quote

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10c. 1855 AD

Would we but pledge ourselves to truth as heartily as we do to a real or imaginary mistress, and think life too short only because it abridges our time of service, what a new world we should have!

James Russell Lowell / quote

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11c. 1855 AD

Light is the symbol of truth.

James Russell Lowell / quote

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12c. 1855 AD

To fail at all is to fail utterly.

James Russell Lowell / quote

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13c. 1855 AD

Many loved Truth, and lavished life’s best oil Amid the dust of books to find her, Content at last, for guerdon of their toil, With the cast mantle she hath left behind her. Many in sad faith sought for her, Many with crossed hands sighed for her; But these, our brothers, fought for her, At life’s dear peril wrought for her, So loved her that they died for her.... They saw her plumed and mailed, With sweet, stern face unveiled, And all-repaying eyes, look proud on them in death.

James Russell Lowell / quote

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14c. 1855 AD

They are slaves who fear to speak For the fallen and the weak; They are slaves who will not choose Hatred, scoffing and abuse, Rather than in silence shrink From the truth they needs must think; They are slaves who dare not be In the right with two or three.

James Russell Lowell / quote

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15c. 1855 AD

One summer hour abides, what time I perched, Dappled with noon-day, under simmering leaves, And pulled the pulpy oxhearts, while aloof An oriole clattered and the robins shrilled, Denouncing me an alien and a thief.

James Russell Lowell / quote

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16c. 1855 AD

Nothing they saw, but a low voice was heard Threading the ominous silence of that fear, Gentle and terrorless, as if a bird, Wakened by some volcano’s glare, should cheer The murk air with his song; yet every word In the cathedral’s farthest arch seemed near, As if it spoke to every one apart, Like the clear voice of conscience to each heart.

James Russell Lowell / quote

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17c. 1855 AD

Poetry is not made out of the understanding. The question of common sense is always: "What is it good for?" a question which would abolish the rose and be triumphantly answered by the cabbage.

James Russell Lowell / quote

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18c. 1855 AD

It is good To lengthen to the last a sunny mood.

James Russell Lowell / quote

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19c. 1855 AD

Evil springs up, and flowers, and bears no seed, And feeds the green earth with its swift decay, Leaving it richer for the growth of truth.

James Russell Lowell / quote

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20c. 1855 AD

Fit language there is none For the heart's deepest things.

James Russell Lowell / quote

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21c. 1855 AD

A woman's love Is mighty, but a mother's heart is weak, And by its weakness overcomes.

James Russell Lowell / quote

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22c. 1855 AD

Ah! let us hope that to our praise Good God not only reckons The moments when we tread His ways, But when the spirit beckons— That some slight good is also wrought Beyond self-satisfaction, When we are simply good in thought, Howe’er we fail in action.

James Russell Lowell / quote

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23c. 1855 AD

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

James Russell Lowell / quote

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24c. 1855 AD

Poetry frequents and keeps habitable those upper chambers of the mind that open toward the sun’s rising.

James Russell Lowell / quote

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