James Russell Lowell Quotes about Reading

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Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.

Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.

James Russell Lowell

Book, Reading, Mind

1849 'Nationality in Literature', in the North American Review, Jul.

Reading enables us to see with the keenest eyes, to hear with the finest ears, and listen to the sweetest voices of all time.

James Russell Lowell

Reading, Eye, Voice

James Russell Lowell (1889). “Books and Libraries: Democracy, and Other Papers”

It is curious how tyrannical the habit of reading is, and what shifts we make to escape thinking. There is no bore we dread being left alone with so much as our own minds.

James Russell Lowell

Reading, Thinking, Mind

James Russell Lowell (1864). “Fireside Travels”, p.124

What a sense of security in an old book which Time has criticized for us!

James Russell Lowell

Time, Book, Reading

"Literary Essays, vol. I". Book by James Russell Lowell, 1864-1890.

Have you ever rightly considered what the mere ability to read means? That it is the key which admits us to the whole world of thought and fancy and imagination? to the company of saint and sage, of the wisest and the wittiest at their wisest and wittiest moment? That it enables us to see with the keenest eyes, hear with the finest ears, and listen to the sweetest voices of all time? More than that, it annihilates time and space for us.

James Russell Lowell

Reading, Mean, Eye

James Russell Lowell (1887). “Democracy and other Addresses”