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It is by presence of mind in untried emergencies that the native metal of man is tested.

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
Men
Untried
Emergencies
Metal
Metals
Tested
Native
Presence
Mind

More quotes by James Russell Lowell

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I would hardly change the sorrowful words of the poets for their glad ones. Tears dampen the strings of the lyre, but they grow the tensor for it, and ring even the clearer and more ravishingly.
James Russell Lowell
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It is curious how tyrannical the habit of reading is...
James Russell Lowell
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To fail at all is to fail utterly.
James Russell Lowell
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The very gnarliest and hardest of hearts has some musical strings in it but they are tuned differently in every one of us.
James Russell Lowell
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Toward no crimes have men shown themselves so cold- bloodedly cruel as in punishing differences of belief.
James Russell Lowell
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Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes, - they were souls that stood alone, While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone, Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine, By one man's plain truth to manhood and to God's supreme design.
James Russell Lowell
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Endurance is the crowning quality.
James Russell Lowell
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Did man e'er live Saw priest or woman yet forgive?
James Russell Lowell
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The Don Quixote of one generation may live to hear himself called the savior of society by the next.
James Russell Lowell
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Fools, when their roof-tree falls, think it doomsday.
James Russell Lowell
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There are two kinds of weakness, that which breaks and that which bends.
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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Wut 's words to them whose faith an' truth On war's red techstone rang true metal Who ventered life an' love an' youth For the gret prize o' death in battle?
James Russell Lowell
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In the storm, like a prophet o'ermaddened, Thou singest and tossest thy branches Thy heart with the terror is gladdened, Thou forebodest the dread avalanches.... In the calm thou o'erstretchest the valleys With thine arms, as if blessings imploring, Like an old king led forth from his palace, When his people to battle are pouring.
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
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Faith in God, faith in man, faith in work: this is the short formula in which we may sum up the teachings of the founders of New England,--a creed ample enough for this life and the next.
James Russell Lowell
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Truth is quite beyond the reach of satire. There is so brave a simplicity in her that she can no more be made ridiculous than an oak or a pine.
James Russell Lowell
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The story of any one man's real experience finds its startling parallel in that of every one of us.
James Russell Lowell
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The quiet tenderness of Chaucer, where you almost seem to hear the hot tears falling, and the simple choking words sobbed out.
James Russell Lowell
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The rich man's sons inherits cares The bank may break, the factory burn, A breath may burst his bubble shares, And soft, white hands could hardly earn A living that would serve his turn.
James Russell Lowell