Men's thoughts and opinions are in a great degree vassals of him who invents a new phrase or re-applies an old epithet.… — James Russell Lowell Copy Share Image
All free governments, whatever their name, are in reality governments by public opinion ; and it is on the quality of this… — James Russell Lowell Copy Share Image
The course of a great statesman resembles that of navigable rivers, avoiding immovable obstacles with noble bends of concession, seeking the broad… — James Russell Lowell Copy Share Image
This imputation of inconsistency is one to which every sound politician and every honest thinker must sooner or later subject himself. The… — James Russell Lowell Copy Share Image
The pressure of public opinion is like the pressure of the atmosphere; you can't see it - but all the same, it… — James Russell Lowell Copy Share Image
The flowers or weeds that spring up tomorrow are in the seeds we sow today. The foolish and the dead alone never… — James Russell Lowell Copy Share Image
He gives only the worthless gold who gives from a sense of duty. — James Russell Lowell Copy Share Image
As life runs on, the road grows strange with faces new - and near the end. The milestones into headstones change, Neath every one… — James Russell Lowell Copy Share Image
Where one person shapes their life by precept and example, there are a thousand who have shaped it by impulse and circumstances. — James Russell Lowell Copy Share Image
Most religion-mongers have bated their paradises with a bit of toasted cheese. They have tempted the body with large promises of possessions in their… — James Russell Lowell Copy Share Image
The thing we long for, that we are For one transcendent moment. — James Russell Lowell Copy Share Image
It is beginning to be doubtful whether Parliament and Congress sit in Westminster and Washington, or in the editorial rooms of the leading journals,--so… — James Russell Lowell Copy Share Image
[B]ut in literature, it should be remembered, a thing always becomes his at last who says it best, and thus makes it his own. — James Russell Lowell Copy Share Image
It may be glorious to write Thoughts that shall glad the two or three High souls, like those far stars that come in sight… — James Russell Lowell Copy Share Image