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

James Russell Lowell

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James Russell Lowell
Age: 72 †
Born: 1819
Born: February 22
Died: 1891
Died: August 12
Diplomat
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Poet
Writer
Cambridge
Massachusetts
World
Single
Less
Success
Weigh
Inspirational
Sentiments
Action
Lovely
Beautiful
Deeds
Love
Charity
Life
Advice

More quotes by James Russell Lowell

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Over our manhood bend the skies Against our fallen and traitor lives The great winds utter prophecies With our faint hearts the mountain strives, Its arms outstretched, the druid wood Waits with its benedicite And to our age’s drowsy blood Still shouts the inspiring sea.
James Russell Lowell
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I love her with a love as still As a broad river's peaceful might, Which by high tower and lowly mill, Goes wandering at its own will, And yet does ever flow aright.
James Russell Lowell
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To fail at all is to fail utterly.
James Russell Lowell
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A man is old when he can pass an apple orchard and not remember the stomachache.
James Russell Lowell
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The purely Great Whose soul no siren passion could unsphere, Thou nameless, now a power and mixed with fate.
James Russell Lowell
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To make the common marvelous is the test of genius.
James Russell Lowell
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Children are God's Apostles, sent forth, day by day, to preach of love, and hope, and peace.
James Russell Lowell
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Aspiration sees only one side of every question possession many.
James Russell Lowell
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Fools, when their roof-tree falls, think it doomsday.
James Russell Lowell
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Who speaks the truth stabs falsehood to the heart.
James Russell Lowell
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Freedom needs all her poets it is they Who give her aspirations wings, And to the wiser law of music sway Her wild imaginings.
James Russell Lowell
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Metaphor is no argument, though it be sometimes the gunpowder to drive one home, and imbed it in the memory.
James Russell Lowell
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Whoever can endure unmixed delight, whoever can tolerate music and painting and poetry all in one, whoever wishes to be rid of thought and to let the busy anvils of the brain be silent for a time, let him read in the Faery Queen.
James Russell Lowell
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I who still pray at morning and at eve Thrice in my life perhaps have truly prayed, Thrice stirred below conscious self Have felt that perfect disenthrallment which is God.
James Russell Lowell
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No sincere desire of doing good need make an enemy of a single human being that philanthropy has surely a flaw in it which cannot sympathize with the oppressor equally as with the oppressed.
James Russell Lowell
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A sneer is the weapon of the weak. Like other devil's weapons, it is always cunningly ready to our hand, and there is more poison in the handle than in the point.
James Russell Lowell
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The time is ripe, and rotten-ripe, for change.
James Russell Lowell
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The discontent with the existing order of things pervaded the atmosphere, wherever the conditions were favorable, long before Columbus, seeking the back door of Asia, found himself knocking at the front door of America.
James Russell Lowell
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All free governments, whatever their name, are in reality governments by public opinion and it is on the quality of this public opinion that their prosperity depends. It is, therefore, their first duty to purify the element from which they draw the breath of life.
James Russell Lowell
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Good heavens, of what un costly material is our earthly happiness composed... if we only knew it. What incomes have we not had from a flower, and how unfailing are the dividends of the seasons.
James Russell Lowell