James Russell Lowell
James Russell Lowell
James Russell Lowellwas an American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat. He is associated with the Fireside Poets, a group of New England writers who were among the first American poets who rivaled the popularity of British poets. These poets usually used conventional forms and meters in their poetry, making them suitable for families entertaining at their fireside...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth22 February 1819
CountryUnited States of America
love men coward
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.
love promise youth
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.
thank-you giving generosity
The gift without the giver is rare.
grief sorrow great-idea
Sorrow is the great idealizer.
men soul eternity
Great truths are portions of the soul of man; Great souls are portions of eternity.
eye angel feet
'Tis sorrow builds the shining ladder up, Whose golden rounds are our calamities, Whereon our firm feet planting, nearer God The spirit climbs, and hath its eyes unsealed. True it is that Death's face seems stern and cold When he is sent to summon those we love; But all God's angels come to us disguised; Sorrow and sickness, poverty and death, One after another, lift their frowning masks, And we behold the Seraph's face beneath, All radiant with the Glory and the calm Of having looked upon the front of God.
truth forever shadow
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.
giving gold duty
He gives only the worthless gold who gives from a sense of duty.
onward-and-upward duty teach
New occasions teach new duties.
beauty sweet eye
Beauty hath no true glass, except it be in the sweet privacy of loving eyes.
lying hate love-is
To put more faith in lies and hate than truth and love, is the true atheism.
pride weakness twins
Pride and weakness are Siamese twins.
education knowledge knowing
He mastered whatever was not worth the knowing.
ignorance intelligent dangerous
It is not the insurrections of ignorance that are dangerous, but the revolts of the intelligence.