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
doors order america
The discontent with the existing order of things pervaded the atmosphere, wherever the conditions were favorable, long before Columbus, seeking the back door of Asia, found himself knocking at the front door of America.
brother men people
Console yourself, dear man and brother; whatever you may be sure of, be sure at least of this, that you are dreadfully like other people. Human nature has a much greater genius for sameness than for originality.
failure failing
To fail at all is to fail utterly.
vision culture
Many-sidedness of culture makes our vision clearer and keener in particulars.
dream dare-to-dream dare
And what they dare to dream of, date to do.
men victory able
There is something solid and doughty in the man that can rise from defeat, the stuff of which victories are made in due time, when we are able to choose our position better, and the sun is at our back.
father men church
A father of the church said that property was theft, many centuries before Proudhon was born. Bourdaloue reaffirmed it. Montesquieu was the inventor of national workshops and of the theory that the state owed every man a living. Nay, was not the church herself the first organized democracy?
gentleman democracy firsts
Christ was the first true democrat that ever breathed, as the old dramatist Dekkar said he was the first true gentleman.
father devil shapes
If the devil take a less hateful shape to us than to our fathers, he is as busy with us as with them.
years circles plums
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.
education school church
The opening of the first grammar school was the opening of the first trench against monopoly in Church and State.
generations enthusiasm abiding
Enthusiasm begets enthusiasm, eloquence produces conviction for the moment; but it is only by truth to Nature and the everlasting institutions of mankind that those abiding influences are won that enlarge from generation to generation.
faith teaching men
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.
mistake men self
Fastidiousness is only another word for egotism; and all men who know not where to look for truth save in the narrow well of self will find their own image at the bottom, and mistake it for what they are seeking.