James Russell Lowell Quotes about Past

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The time is ripe, and rotten-ripe, for change... [Truth's] mirror is turned forward, to reflect The promise of the future, not the past.

The time is ripe, and rotten-ripe, for change... [Truth's] mirror is turned forward, to reflect The promise of the future, not the past.

James Russell Lowell

Past, Mirrors, Promise

James Russell Lowell (1871). “The poetical works of James Russell Lowell”, p.48

My soul is not a palace of the past.

James Russell Lowell

Past, Soul, Palaces

James Russell Lowell (1871). “The poetical works of James Russell Lowell”, p.48

Old events have modern meanings; only that survives of past history which finds kindred in all hearts and lives.

James Russell Lowell

Heart, Past, History

James Russell Lowell (1871). “The poetical works of James Russell Lowell”, p.402

Things always seem fairer when we look back at them, and it is out of that inaccessible tower of the past that Longing leans and beckons.

James Russell Lowell

Past, Towers, Looks

James Russell Lowell (1864). “Fireside Travels”, p.294

O thou, whose days are yet all spring, Faith, blighted once, is past retrieving; Experience is a dumb, dead thing; The victory's in believing.

James Russell Lowell

Spring, Believe, Past

James Russell Lowell (1871). “The poetical works of James Russell Lowell”, p.98

Safe in the hallowed quiets of the past.

James Russell Lowell

Past, Memorial, Safe

James Russell Lowell (2016). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell (Illustrated)”, p.770, Delphi Classics

Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it, We are happy now because God so wills it; No matter how barren the past may have been, 'T is enough for us now that the leaves are green; We sit in the warm shade and feel right well How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell... The breeze comes whispering in our ear, That dandelions are blossoming near... Every thing is upward striving; 'T is as easy now for the heart to be true As for grass to be green or skies to be blue, - 'T is the natural way of living.

James Russell Lowell

Summer, Heart, Past

James Russell Lowell, “The Vision Of Sir Launfal”

The time is ripe, and rotten-ripe, for change; Then let it come: I have no dread of what Is called for by the instinct of mankind. Nor think I that God's world would fall apart Because we tear a parchment more or less. Truth is eternal, but her effluence, With endless change, is fitted to the hour; Her mirror is turned forward, to reflect The promise of the future, not the past. I do not fear to follow out the truth.

James Russell Lowell

Fall, Past, Thinking

James Russell Lowell (1844). “Poems”, p.178

The New World's sons from England's breast we drew Such milk as bids remember whence we came, Proud of her past wherefrom our future grew, This window we inscribe with Raleigh's fame.

James Russell Lowell

Son, Past, World

The true historical genius, to our thinking, is that which can see the nobler meaning of events that are near him, as the true poet is he who detects the divine in the casual; and we somewhat suspect the depth of his insight into the past who cannot recognize the godlike of to-day under that disguise in which it always visits us.

James Russell Lowell

Thinking, Past, Historical

James Russell Lowell (1871). “My Study Windows”, p.109

Men have their intellectual ancestry, and the likeness of some one of them is forever unexpectedly flashing out in the features of a descendant, it may be after a gap of several centuries. In the parliament of the present every man represents a constituency of the past.

James Russell Lowell

Past, Men, Forever

"The poetical works of John Keats. With a memoir, by James Russell Lowell" by John Keats, James Russell Lowell, New York: J. Miller, 1871.

Ye come and go incessant; we remain Safe in the hallowed quiets of the past; Be reverent, ye who flit and are forgot, Of faith so nobly realized as this.

James Russell Lowell

Past, Safe, Incessant

James Russell Lowell (2016). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell (Illustrated)”, p.770, Delphi Classics