James Russell Lowell (1819-1891)

James Russell Lowell was an American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat. He is associated with the fireside poets, a group of New England writers who were among the first American poets to rival the popularity of British poets. These writers usually used conventional forms and meters in their poetry, making them suitable for families entertaining at their fireside.

Quotes

Sincerity is impossible, unless it pervades the whole being, and the pretence of it saps the very foundation of character.
Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this, that you are dreadfully like other people.
Creativity is not the finding of a thing, but the making something out of it after it is found.
This imputation of inconsistency is one to which every sound politician and every honest thinker must sooner or later subject himself. The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinion.

Opinions
Democracy is that form of society, no matter what its political classification, in which every man has a chance and knows that he has it.
Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this-that you are dreadfully like other people.
Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or the handle.
In creating, the only hard thing is to begin: a grass blade's no easier to make than an oak.
There is no good arguing with the inevitible. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat.
A poet must need be before his own age, to be even with posterity.
Truth, after all, wears a different face to everybody, and it would be too tedious to wait till all were agreed.
Folks never understand the folks they hate.
They are slaves who fear to speak,
For the fallen and the weak.
Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.
Toward no crime have men shown themselves so cold-bloodedly cruel as in punishing differences of belief.

Differences
All the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.