Past Quotes by James Russell Lowell

We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage.

— James Russell Lowell

He gives only the worthless gold who gives from a sense of duty.

— James Russell Lowell

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

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

Granting our wish is one of Fate's saddest jokes.

— James Russell Lowell

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

The thing we long for, that we are For one transcendent moment.

— James Russell Lowell

O reputation! dearer far than life.

— James Russell Lowell

Keats longed for fame, but longed above all to deserve it.

— James Russell Lowell

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

[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

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

It is the vain endeavor to make ourselves what we are not that has strewn history with so many broken purposes and lives left…

— James Russell Lowell

Take winter as you find him, and he turns out to be a thoroughly honest fellow; with no nonsense in him, which is a…

— James Russell Lowell

The intellect has only one failing, which, to be sure, is a very considerable one. It has no conscience.

— James Russell Lowell