Quotes from James Russell Lowell:

A weed is no more than a flower in disguise. 
From A Fable for Critics (1848).

Let us be of good cheer, however, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never come. 
From Democracy and Addresses (1884).

Life seems a jest of Fate’s contriving. 
From Harvard Commemoration Ode (1865).

The unmotivated herd that only sleep and feed. 
From Under the Old Elm.

Granting our wish one of Fate’s saddest jokes is! 
From Two Scenes from the Life of Blondel.

They are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak. 
From Stanzas on Freedom (1843).

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side.
From The Present Crisis (1844).

And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days,
From The Vision of Sir Launfal (1848).

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. 
From The Vision of Sir Launfal (1848).

In creating, the only hard thing’s to begin;
A grass-blade’s no easier to make than an oak.
From A Fable for Critics (1848).

Nature fits all her children with something to do,
He who would write and can’t write, can surely review.
From A Fable for Critics (1848).

I don’t believe in princerple,
But oh I du in interest.
From The Biglow Papers, Series I (1848).

There is nothing so desperately monotonous as the sea, and I no longer wonder at the cruelty of pirates.
From Fireside Travels (1864).

It is by presence of mind in untried emergencies that the native metal of a man is tested.
From Abraham Lincoln (1864).

When I was a beggarly boy,
And lived in a cellar damp,
I had not a friend nor a toy,
But I had Aladdin’s lamp.
From Aladdin (1868).

Though old the thought and oft expressed,
‘Tis his at last who says it best.
From For an Autograph (1868).

There is no good in arguing with the inevitable.  The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat.
From Democracy (October 6, 1884).

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.
From Literary Essays, vol. II, (1879-1890), New England Two Centuries Ago.

Talent is that which is in a man’s power; genius is that in whose power a man is.
From Literary Essays, vol. II, (1879-1890), Rousseau and the Sentimentalists.
 

Poetry of James Russell Lowell

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