There is surely room for yet another schoolmaster when a score of seers advertise themselves in Boston newspapers. James Russell Lowell More Quotes by James Russell Lowell More Quotes From James Russell Lowell The course of a great statesman resembles that of navigable rivers, avoiding immovable obstacles with noble bends of concession, seeking the broad levels of opinion on which men soonest settle and longest dwell, following and marking the almost imperceptible slopes of national tendency, yet always aiming at direct advances, always recruited from sources nearer heaven, and sometimes bursting open paths of progress and fruitful human commerce through what seem the eternal barriers of both. James Russell Lowell riversmenheaven Keats longed for fame, but longed above all to deserve it. James Russell Lowell deservefame For Humanity sweeps onward: where today the martyr stands, On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands; Far in front the cross stands ready and the crackling fagots burn, While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return To glean up the scattered ashes into History's golden urn. James Russell Lowell humanityyesterdayhands A profound common sense is the best genius for statesmanship. James Russell Lowell common-sensegeniusprofound The rich man's sons inherits cares; The bank may break, the factory burn, A breath may burst his bubble shares, And soft, white hands could hardly earn A living that would serve his turn. James Russell Lowell whitemenson The opening of the first grammar school was the opening of the first trench against monopoly in Church and State. James Russell Lowell churcheducationschool Over all life broods Poesy, like the calm blue sky with its motherly, rebuking face. She is the great reformer, and where the love of her is strong and healthy, wickedness and wrong cannot long prevail. James Russell Lowell strongskyblue But better far it is to speak James Russell Lowell simplesympathyson Taste is the next gift to genius. James Russell Lowell nextgeniustaste 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 stringspoettears Men's thoughts and opinions are in a great degree vassals of him who invents a new phrase or re-applies an old epithet. The thought or feeling a thousand times repeated becomes his at last who utters it best. James Russell Lowell degreesfeelingsmen The material of thought re-acts upon the thought itself. James Russell Lowell materials Through aisles of long-drawn centuries my spirit walks in thought. James Russell Lowell centuryspiritlong God is the only being who has time enough; but a prudent man, who knows how to seize occasion, can commonly make a shift to find as much as he needs. James Russell Lowell timemenneeds 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 eternal-lifetraditionoriginals With every step of the recent traveler our inheritance of the wonderful is diminished. Those beautiful pictured notes of the possible are redeemed at a ruinous discount in the hard coin of the actual. James Russell Lowell inheritancebeautifultravel A stray hair, by its continued irritation, may give more annoyance than a smart blow. James Russell Lowell irritationsmartblow It is right precious to behold James Russell Lowell climbinglightlong A great part of human suffering has its root in the nature of man, and not in that of his institutions. James Russell Lowell sufferingrootsmen Among the lessons taught by the French revolution, there is none sadder or more striking than this--that you may make everything else out of the passions of men except a political system that will work, and that there is nothing so pitilessly and unconsciously cruel as sincerity formulated into dogma. James Russell Lowell passionpoliticalmen
