110+ James Russell Lowell Quotes On Education, Freedom And Friendship

James Russell Lowell was an American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat. He was one of the Fireside Poets, a group of New England writers who were among the first American poets that rivaled the popularity of British poets. Lowell also served as a diplomat in Spain and in England, and as an editor of The Atlantic Monthly. Following is our collection on famous quotes by James Russell Lowell on education, freedom, friendship.

Top 10 James Russell Lowell Quotes

1. Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.
2. One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning.
3. Fate loves the fearless.
4. All the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.
5. Light is the symbol of truth.
6. A weed is no more than a flower in disguise.
7. The mind can weave itself warmly in the cocoon of its own thoughts, and dwell a hermit anywhere.
8. Truth, after all, wears a different face to everybody, and it would be too tedious to wait till all were agreed.
9. Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof.
10. Sincerity is impossible, unless it pervade the whole being, and the pretence of it saps the very foundation of character.

James Russell Lowell Image Quotes

One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning. — James Russell Lowell

Fate loves the fearless. — James Russell Lowell

Light is the symbol of truth. — James Russell Lowell

James Russell Lowell Short Quotes

• Not what we give, but what we share, for the gift without the giver is bare.
• Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide.
• New occasions teach new duties.
• The misfortunes hardest to bear are these which never came.
• Time makes ancient good uncouth.
• And blessed are the horny hands of toil.
• The green grass floweth like a stream Into the oceans's blue.
• In the ocean of baseness, the deeper we get, the easier the sinking.
• The greater your real strength and power, the quieter it will be exercised.
• A sneer is the weapon of the weak.

James Russell Lowell Quotes About Education

To educate the intelligence is to expand the horizon of its wants and desires. — James Russell Lowell

It was in making education not only common to all, but in some sense compulsory on all, that the destiny of the free republics of America was practically settled. — James Russell Lowell

The opening of the first grammar school was the opening of the first trench against monopoly in Church and State. — James Russell Lowell

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

James Russell Lowell Quotes About Freedom

True freedom is to share All the chains our brothers wear, And, with heart and hand, to be Earnest to make others free! — James Russell Lowell

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. — James Russell Lowell

Freedom is the only law which genius knows. — James Russell Lowell

Slow are the steps of freedom, but her feet turn never backward. — James Russell Lowell

Freedom needs all her poets; it is they Who give her aspirations wings, And to the wiser law of music sway Her wild imaginings. — James Russell Lowell

James Russell Lowell Quotes About Love

Those who know the truth are not equal to those who love it Confucius All truth is safe and nothing else is safe, but he who keeps back truth, or withholds it from men, from motives of expediency, is either a coward or a criminal. — James Russell Lowell

True love is but a humble, low born thing, And hath its food served up in earthenware; It is a thing to walk with, hand in hand, Through the every-dayness of this workday world. — James Russell Lowell

That love for one, from which there doth not spring Wide love for all, is but a worthless thing. — James Russell Lowell

There is something magnificent in having a country to love. — James Russell Lowell

No man can produce great things who is not thoroughly sincere in dealing with himself, who would not exchange the finest show for the poorest reality, who does not so love his work that he is not only glad to give himself for it, but finds rather a gain than a sacrifice in the surrender. — James Russell Lowell

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

Some day the soft Ideal that we wooed confronts us fiercely, foe-beset, pursued, and cries reproachful: Was it then my praise, and not myself was loved? Prove now thy truth; I claim of thee the promise of thy youth. — James Russell Lowell

Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action. — James Russell Lowell

I love her with a love as still As a broad river's peaceful might, Which by high tower and lowly mill, Goes wandering at its own will, And yet does ever flow aright. — James Russell Lowell

Wut 's words to them whose faith an' truth On war's red techstone rang true metal; Who ventered life an' love an' youth For the gret prize o' death in battle? — James Russell Lowell

James Russell Lowell Quotes About Truth

The only conclusive evidence of a man's sincerity is that he gives himself for a principle. Words, money, all things else, are comparatively easy to give away; but when a man makes a gift of his daily life and practice, it is plain that the truth, whatever it may be, has taken possession of him. — James Russell Lowell

For men in earnest have no time to waste In patching fig-leaves for the naked truth. — James Russell Lowell

New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth; They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth. — James Russell Lowell

The time is ripe, and rotten-ripe, for change... [Truth's] mirror is turned forward, to reflect The promise of the future, not the past. — James Russell Lowell

Who speaks the truth stabs falsehood to the heart. — James Russell Lowell

Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,- Yet that scaffold sways the Future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own. — James Russell Lowell

The greatest homage we can pay to truth, is to use it. — James Russell Lowell

Once to every person and nation come the moment to decide. In the conflict of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side. — James Russell Lowell

Praise follows truth afar off, and only overtakes her at the grave; plausibility clings to her skirts and holds her back till then — James Russell Lowell

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

James Russell Lowell Quotes About Life

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. — 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 a friend. — James Russell Lowell

Life is the jailer, death the angel sent to draw the unwilling bolts and set us free. — James Russell Lowell

While tenderness of feeling and susceptibility to generous emotions are accidents of temperament, goodness is an achievement of the will and a quality of the life. — 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

Most long lives resemble those threads of gossamer, the nearest approach to nothing unmeaningly prolonged, scarce visible pathways of some worm from his cradle to his grave. — James Russell Lowell

Faith in God, faith in man, faith in work: this is the short formula in which we may sum up the teachings of the founders of New England,--a creed ample enough for this life and the next. — James Russell Lowell

But life is sweet, though all that makes it sweet. Lessen like sound of friends departing feet; And death is beautiful as feet of friend. Coming with welcome at our journey's end. — James Russell Lowell

What men call luck Is the prerogative of valiant souls, The fealty life pays its rightful kings. — James Russell Lowell

There is only one thing better than tradition and that is the original and eternal life out of which all tradition takes its rise. — James Russell Lowell

James Russell Lowell Quotes About Character

Sincerity is impossible, unless it pervades the whole being, and the pretence of it saps the very foundation of character. — James Russell Lowell

Reputation is only a candle, of wavering and uncertain flame, and easily blown out, but it is the light by which the world looks for and finds merit. — James Russell Lowell

Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character. — James Russell Lowell

Good luck is the willing handmaid of a upright and energetic character, and conscientious observance of duty. — James Russell Lowell

They are slaves who fear to speak, for the fallen and the weak. — James Russell Lowell

All that hath been majestical In life or death, since time began, Is native in the simple heart of all, The angel heat of man. — James Russell Lowell

James Russell Lowell Quotes About World

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. — James Russell Lowell

Year by year, more and more of the world gets disenchanted. Even the icy privacy of the arctic and antarctic circles is invaded. We have played Jack Horner with our earth, till there is never a plum left in it. — James Russell Lowell

A beggar through the world am I, From place to place I wander by. Fill up my pilgrim's scrip for me, For Christ's sweet sake and charity. — James Russell Lowell

O visionary world, condition strange, Where naught abiding is but only change. — James Russell Lowell

Ah, in this world, where every guiding thread Ends suddenly in the one sure centre, death, The visionary hand of Might-have-been Alone can fill Desire's cup to the brim! — James Russell Lowell

All share in the government of the world was denied for centuries to perhaps the ablest, certainly the most tenacious race that had ever lived in it — James Russell Lowell

The New World's sons from England's breast we drew Such milk as bids remember whence we came, Proud of her past wherefrom our future grew, This window we inscribe with Raleigh's fame. — James Russell Lowell

Whom the heart of man shuts out, Sometimes the heart of God takes in, And fences them all round about With silence mid the worlds loud din. — James Russell Lowell

Every person born into this world their work is born with them. — James Russell Lowell

The one thing finished in this hasty world. — James Russell Lowell

James Russell Lowell Quotes About Change

The foolish and the dead never change their opinions. — James Russell Lowell

The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinions. — James Russell Lowell

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. — James Russell Lowell

I would hardly change the sorrowful words of the poets for their glad ones. Tears dampen the strings of the lyre, but they grow the tensor for it, and ring even the clearer and more ravishingly. — James Russell Lowell

The time is ripe, and rotten-ripe, for change. — 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 a friend. — James Russell Lowell

Not a change for the better in our human housekeeping has ever taken place that wise and good men have not opposed it-have not prophesied that the world would wake up to find its throat cut in consequence. — James Russell Lowell

The flowers or weeds that spring up tomorrow are in the seeds we sow today. The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinions. — James Russell Lowell

James Russell Lowell Famous Quotes And Sayings

One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning. — James Russell Lowell

Fate loves the fearless. — James Russell Lowell

What visionary tints the year puts on, When falling leaves falter through motionless air Or numbly cling and shiver to be gone! How shimmer the low flats and pastures bare, As with her nectar Hebe Autumn fills The bowl between me and those distant hills, And smiles and shakes abroad her misty, tremulous hair! — James Russell Lowell

Light is the symbol of truth. — James Russell Lowell

The snow had begun in the gloaming, and busily all the night had been heaping field and highway with a silence deep and white. — James Russell Lowell

It is right precious to behold The first long surf of climbing light Flood all the thirsty east with gold. — James Russell Lowell

Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do that day, which must be done, whether you like it or not. — James Russell Lowell

Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or by the handle. — James Russell Lowell

Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or the handle. — James Russell Lowell

The dandelions and buttercups gild all the lawn: the drowsy bee stumbles among the clover tops, and summer sweetens all to me. — James Russell Lowell

Metaphor is no argument, though it be sometimes the gunpowder to drive one home, and imbed it in the memory. — James Russell Lowell

There is no better ballast for keeping the mind steady on its keel, and saving it from all risk of crankiness, than business. — James Russell Lowell

So we're all right, an' I, for one, Don't think our cause'll lose in vally By rammin' Scriptur' in our gun, An' gittin' Natur' for an ally. — James Russell Lowell

Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof; it is temporary expedient, often wise in party politics, almost sure to be unwise in statesmanship. — James Russell Lowell

There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat. — James Russell Lowell

There are two kinds of weakness, that which breaks and that which bends. — James Russell Lowell

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. — James Russell Lowell

Let us be of good cheer, however, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never come. — James Russell Lowell

If we see light at the end of the tunnel, it's the light of the oncoming train. — James Russell Lowell

There is nothing so desperately monotonous as the sea, and I no longer wonder at the cruelty of pirates. — James Russell Lowell

Not failure, but low aim, is crime. — James Russell Lowell

True scholarship consists in knowing not what things exist, but what they mean; it is not memory but judgment. — James Russell Lowell

That best academy, a mother's knee. — James Russell Lowell

The eye is the notebook of the poet. — James Russell Lowell

As one lamp lights another, nor grows less,So nobleness enkindleth nobleness. — James Russell Lowell

A wise man travels to discover himself. — James Russell Lowell

The idol is the measure of the worshipper. — James Russell Lowell

The brain can be easy to buy, but the heart never comes to market. — James Russell Lowell

The traitor to Humanity is the traitor most accurst. — James Russell Lowell

All God's angels come to us disguised. — James Russell Lowell

In creating, the only hard thing is to begin: a grass blade's no easier to make than an oak. — James Russell Lowell

He mastered whatever was not worth the knowing. — James Russell Lowell

The heart forgets its sorrow and ache. — James Russell Lowell

I don't believe in principle, but I do in interest. — James Russell Lowell

The only faith that wears well and holds its color in all weathers is that which is woven of conviction and set with the sharp mordant of experience. — James Russell Lowell

And what they dare to dream of, date to do. — James Russell Lowell

Fortune is the rod of the weak, and the staff of the brave. — James Russell Lowell

I have always been of the mind that in a democracy manners are the only effective weapons against the bowie-knife. — James Russell Lowell

Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this, that you are dreadfully like other people. — James Russell Lowell

Talent is that which is in a man's power; genius is that in whose power a man is. — James Russell Lowell

A wise skepticism is the first attribute of a good critic. — James Russell Lowell

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

Folks never understand the folks they hate. — James Russell Lowell

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

They talk about their Pilgrim blood, their birthright high and holy! a mountain-stream that ends in mud thinks is melancholy. — James Russell Lowell

The purely Great Whose soul no siren passion could unsphere, Thou nameless, now a power and mixed with fate. — James Russell Lowell

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

What men prize most is a privilege, even if it be that of chief mourner at a funeral. — James Russell Lowell

The nurse of full-grown souls is solitude. — James Russell Lowell

An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run. — James Russell Lowell

Against the windows the storm comes dashing, Through tattered foliage the hail tears crashing, The blue lightning flashes, The rapid hail clashes... The thunder is rumbling And crashing and crumbling. — James Russell Lowell

Incredulity robs us of many pleasures, and gives us nothing in return. — James Russell Lowell

In vain we call old notions fudge, And bend our conscience to our dealing; The Ten Commandments will not budge, And stealing will continue stealing. — James Russell Lowell

Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor. — James Russell Lowell

The true ideal is not opposed to the real but lies in it; and blessed are the eyes that find it. — James Russell Lowell

My gran'ther's rule was safer 'n 't is to crow: Don't never prophesy - onless ye know. — James Russell Lowell

Fanaticism, or, to call it by its milder name, enthusiasm, is only powerful and active so long as it is aggressive. Establish it firmly in power, and it becomes conservatism, whether it will or no. — James Russell Lowell

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

It is mediocrity which makes laws and sets mantraps and spring-guns in the realm of free song, saying thus far shalt thou go and no further. — James Russell Lowell

The Holy Supper is kept, indeed, In whatso we share with anothers need; Not what we give, but what we share, For the gift without the giver is bare; Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me. — James Russell Lowell

Evil is a far more cunning and persevering propagandist than good, for it has no inward strength, and is driven to seek countenance and sympathy. — James Russell Lowell

For there's nothing we read of in torture's inventions, Like a well-meaning dunce, with the best of intentions. — 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

The quiet tenderness of Chaucer, where you almost seem to hear the hot tears falling, and the simple choking words sobbed out. — James Russell Lowell

The gift without the giver is rare. — James Russell Lowell

Life Lessons by James Russell Lowell

1. James Russell Lowell teaches us to appreciate the beauty and fragility of life and to strive for justice and equality. He reminds us that we should always strive to be kind and compassionate to those around us, and to be mindful of the power of our words and actions.
2. Lowell encourages us to be open to new ideas and to think critically about the world around us, while also recognizing the importance of our individual contributions to the greater good.
3. He emphasizes the importance of living with integrity, of standing up for what we believe in, and of striving to make the world a better place for all.