Life & Wisdom Quote by James Russell Lowell

Skepticism, Lowell implies, is an expensive habit masquerading as intelligence. "Incredulity robs us of many pleasures, and gives us nothing in return" is less an attack on reason than a warning about a particular posture: the reflexive flinch away from wonder, sentiment, faith, even simple openness. The verb "robs" casts disbelief as theft, not prudence. It doesn’t merely protect you from being fooled; it actively extracts joy you might have legitimately had. And the kicker is the accounting: "nothing in return". Lowell frames incredulity as a bad bargain, a self-congratulating austerity that pays out in emptiness.

As a nineteenth-century poet and public moralist, Lowell wrote in a culture negotiating modernity’s growing prestige for doubt: higher criticism of scripture, scientific confidence, industrial rationality, and a certain Brahmin suspicion of anything too fervent. In that atmosphere, incredulity could read as sophistication, the mark of someone too worldly to be moved. Lowell punctures that pose. His subtext is psychological as much as philosophical: chronic disbelief doesn’t create neutrality; it creates a narrowed life. The line defends the unquantifiable pleasures that depend on a provisional "yes" - being charmed, trusting a friend, letting art work on you, risking hope.

It’s also quietly strategic rhetoric. He doesn’t demand credulity; he indicts incredulity for poor results. If the skeptic’s promise is clarity and safety, Lowell asks: where’s the profit? If your doubt can’t purchase wisdom, only deprivation, it’s not discernment - it’s a refusal to live.