If the devil take a less hateful shape to us than to our fathers, he is as busy with us as with them.
James Russell LowellGreatly begin. Though thou have time, but for a line, be that sublime. Not failure, but low aim is crime.
James Russell LowellA stray hair, by its continued irritation, may give more annoyance than a smart blow.
James Russell LowellToward no crimes have men shown themselves so cold- bloodedly cruel as in punishing differences of belief.
James Russell LowellIt is curious for one who studies the action and reaction of national literature on each other, to see the humor of Swift and Sterne and Fielding, after filtering through Richter, reappear in Carlyle with a tinge of Germanism that makes it novel, alien, or even displeasing, as the case may be, to the English mind.
James Russell Lowell