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Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof it is temporary expedient, often wise in party politics, almost sure to be unwise in statesmanship.

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
Party
Temporary
Poor
Compromise
Often
Commitment
Makes
Wise
Statesmanship
Political
Wisdom
Expedient
Good
Almost
Unwise
Politics
Umbrella
Sure
Roof

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Light is the symbol of truth.
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Blessed are they who have nothing to say and who cannot be persuaded to say it.
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Evil springs up, and flowers, and bears no seed, And feeds the green earth with its swift decay, Leaving it richer for the growth of truth.
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Metaphor is no argument, though it be sometimes the gunpowder to drive one home, and imbed it in the memory.
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O visionary world, condition strange, Where naught abiding is but only change.
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Poetry is something to make us wiser and better, by continually revealing those types of beauty and truth, which God has set in all men's souls.
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The only faith that wears well and holds its color in all weathers is that which is woven of conviction and set with the sharp mordant of experience.
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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.
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Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way, Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold, First pledge of blithesome May, Which children pluck, and, full of pride uphold.
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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.
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Good luck is the willing handmaid of upright, energetic character, and conscientious observance of duty.
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If youth be a defect, it is one that we outgrow only too soon.
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New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.
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Most men make the voyage of life as if they carried sealed orders which they were not to open till they were fairly in mid-ocean.
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It is the vain endeavor to make ourselves what we are not that has strewn history with so many broken purposes and lives left in the rough.
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That cause is strong which has, not a multitude, but one strong man behind it.
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The devil loves nothing better than the intolerance of reformers.
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Aspiration sees only one side of every question possession many.
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Stories now, to suit a public taste, must be half epigram, half pleasant vice.
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It is only the intellect that can be thoroughly and hideously wicked. It can forget everything in the attainment of its ends. The heart recoils in its retired some drops of childhood's dew still linger, defying manhood's fiery noon.
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