I have always been of the mind that in a democracy manners are the only effective weapons against the bowie-knife.
James Russell LowellRead
Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Books facilitate the sharing of ideas and knowledge between minds.
James Russell Lowell's quote highlights the significant role that books play in transmitting knowledge and stimulating intellectual growth. Just as bees pollinate flowers, enabling them to flourish, books nurture and expand our thoughts by delivering ideas from one person to another, creating a rich ecosystem of shared understanding and creativity.
Themes
BooksKnowledgeIdeasEducationIntellect
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of literacy, you might quote this to emphasize the value of books.
More from James Russell Lowell
All quotes βThe foolish and the dead alone never change their opinions.
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Not failure, but low aim, is crime.
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Good luck is the willing handmaid of upright, energetic character, and conscientious observance of duty.
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Puritanism, believing itself quick with the seed of religious liberty, laid, without knowing it, the egg of democracy.
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Old events have modern meanings; only that survives of past history which finds kindred in all hearts and lives.
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Similar quotes
I learned to read at the age of five, in Brother Justiniano's class at the De la Salle Academy in Cochabamba, Bolivia. It is the most important thing that has ever happened to me. Almost seventy years later I remember clearly how the magic of translating the words in books into images enriched my life, breaking the barriers of time and space.
Mario Vargas LlosaRead
But one of the things I have learned during the time I have spent in the United States is an old African American saying: Each one, teach one. I want to believe that I am here to teach one and, more, that there is one here who is meant to teach me. And if we each one teach one, we will make a difference.
Marcus SamuelssonRead
If we want to invest in the prosperity of our nation, we must invest in the education of our children so that their talents may be fully employed.
William J. ClintonRead
Literacy is the most basic currency of the knowledge economy.
Barack ObamaRead
You see, unlike in the movies, there is no THE END sign flashing at the end of books. When I've read a book, I don't feel like I've finished anything. So I start a new one.
Elif SafakRead
Every good journalist is aware that his trade may one day go the way of phrenology-and, what's more, the population will hardly protest the extinction.
David RemnickRead