5 James Russell Lowell Quotes on Criticism

James Russell Lowell quotes on criticism

25. How little inventiveness there is in man, Grave copier of copies, I give thanks For a new relish, careless to inquire My pleasure's pedigree, if so it please, Nobly, I mean, nor renegade to art. The Grecian gluts me with its perfectness, Unanswerable as Euclid, self-contained, The one thing finished in this hasty world, Forever finished, though the barbarous pit, Fanatical on hearsay, stamp and shout As if a miracle could be encored.

51. There comes Poe, with his raven, like Barnaby Rudge, Three-fifths of him genius and two-fifths sheer fudge.

53. Nature fits all her children with something to do, He who would write and can't write, can surely review.

89. A wise skepticism is the first attribute of a good critic.

93. I have hinted that what people are afraid of in democracy is less the thing itself than what they conceive to be its necessary adjuncts and consequences. It is supposed to reduce all mankind to a dead level of mediocrity in character and culture, to vulgarize men's conceptions of life, and therefore their code of morals, manners, and conduct - to endanger the rights of property and possession. But I believe that the real gravamen of the charges lies in the habit it has of making itself generally disagreeable by asking the Powers that Be at the most inconvenient moment whether they are the powers that ought to be. If the powers that be are in a condition to give a satisfactory answer to this inevitable question, they need feel in no way discomfited by it.