James Russell Lowell Quotes on Truth
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Who speaks the truth stabs Falsehood to the heart.
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They are slaves who fear to speak For the fallen and the weak; They are slaves who will not choose Hatred, scoffing, and abuse, Rather than in silence shrink From the truth they needs must think; They are slaves who dare not be In the right with two or three.
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In vain we call old notions fudge, And bend our conscience to our dealing; The Ten Commandments will not budge, And stealing will continue stealing.
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If I were asked what book is better than a cheap book, I should answer that there is one book better than a cheap book,-and that is a book honestly come by.
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Great truths are portions of the soul of man; Great souls are portions of eternity.
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Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side.
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Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,- Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.
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New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth; They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be, Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea, Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted key.
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Our papers don't purtend to print on'y wut Guv'ment choose, An' thet insures us all to git the very best o' noose.
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No, never say nothin' without you're compelled tu, An' then don't say nothin' thet you can be held tu.
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No man can produce great things who is not thoroughly sincere in dealing with himself.
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Few people take the trouble of trying to find out what democracy really is. Yet this would be a great help, for it is our lawless and uncertain thoughts, it is the indefiniteness of our impressions, that fill darkness, whether mental or physical, with spectres and hobgoblins. Democracy is nothing more than an experiment in government, more likely to succeed in a new soil, but likely to be tried in all soils, which must stand or fall on its own merits as others have done before it. For there is no trick of perpetual motion in politics any more than in mechanics.
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Truth, after all, wears a different face to everybody, and it would be too tedious to wait till all were agreed. She is said to lie at the bottom of a well, for the very reason, perhaps, that whoever looks down in search of her sees his own image at the bottom, and is persuaded not only that he has seen the goddess, but that she is far better looking than he had imagined.