Quotes
Quotes - Lowell
Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.
Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or by the handle.
Sence I've ben here, I've hired a chap to look about for me, To git me a transplantable an' thrifty fem'ly-tree.
Not caring, so that sumpter-horse, the back Be hung with gaudy trappings, in what course Yea, rags most beggarly, they clothe the soul.
There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat.
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!
He seemed a cherub who had lost his way And wandered hither, so his stay With us was short, and 'twas most meet, That he should be no delver in earth's clod, Nor need to pause and cleanse his feet To stand before his God: O blest word--Evermore!
Listen! O, listen! Here come the hum the golden bees Underneath full blossomed trees, At once with glowing fruit and flowers crowned.
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.
For books are more than books, they are the life, the very heart and core of ages past, the reason why men worked and died, the essence and quintessence of their lives.
It is good To lengthen to the last a sunny mood.
"What means this glory round our feet," The Magi mused, "more bright than morn!" And voices chanted clear and sweet, "To-day the Prince of Peace is born."
Communism means barbarism.
And but two ways are offered to our will, Toil with rare triumph, ease with safe disgrace, The problem still for us and all of human race.
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.
Gineral C. is a dreffle smart man: He's been on all sides that give places or pelf; But consistency still wuz a part of his plan; He's been true to one party, and that is, himself;-- So John P. Robinson, he Sez he shall vote for Gineral C.
He who esteems the Virginia reel A bait to draw saints from their spiritual weal, And regards the quadrille as a far greater knavery Than crushing His African children with slavery, Since all who take part in a waltz or cotillon Are mounted for hell on the devil's own pillion, Who, as every true orthodox Christian well knows, Approaches the heart through the door of the toes.
Puritanism, believing itself quick with the seed of religious liberty, laid, without knowing it, the egg of democracy.
Democ'acy gives every man A right to be his own oppressor.
Democracy is the form of government that gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.
The thing we long for, that we are For one transcendent moment.
The future works out great men's destinies; The present is enough for common souls, Who, never looking forward, are indeed Mere clay wherein the footprints of their age Are petrified forever.
Thet tells the story! Thet's wut we shall git By tryin' squirtguns on the burnin' Pit; For the day never comes when it'll du To kick off dooty like a worn-out shoe.
O chime of sweet Saint Charity, Peal soon that Easter morn When Christ for all shall risen be, And in all hearts new-born! That Pentecost when utterance clear To all men shall be given, When all shall say My Brother here, And hear My Son in heaven!
One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning.
