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.
James Russell LowellRead
Puritanism, believing itself quick with the seed of religious liberty, laid, without knowing it, the egg of democracy.
James Russell LowellRead
Old events have modern meanings; only that survives of past history which finds kindred in all hearts and lives.
James Russell LowellRead
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Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. Without books, the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are engines of change (as the poet said), windows on the world and lighthouses erected in the sea of time. They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind. Books are humanity in print.
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We teachers can only help the work going on, as servants wait upon a master.
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