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He who is firmly seated in authority soon learns to think security, and not progress, the highest lesson in statecraft.

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
Soon
Authority
Highest
Statecraft
Progress
Seated
Security
Learns
Literature
Firmly
Think
Lesson
Thinking
Lessons

More quotes by James Russell Lowell

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Ef you want peace, the thing you've gut to du Is jes' to show you're up to fightin', tu.
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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The victory's in believing.
James Russell Lowell
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Nature fits all her children with something to do, he who would write and can't write, can surely review.
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Democracy is nothing more than an experiment in government, more likely to succeed in a new soil, but likely to be tried in all soils, which must stand or fall on its own merits as others have done before it. For there is no trick of perpetual motion in politics any more than in mechanics.
James Russell Lowell
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I have always been of the mind that in a democracy manners are the only effective weapons against the bowie-knife.
James Russell Lowell
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The future works out great men's destinies The present is enough for common souls, Who, never looking forward, are indeed Mere clay wherein the footprints of their age Are petrified forever.
James Russell Lowell
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The devil loves nothing better than the intolerance of reformers.
James Russell Lowell
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Not what we give, but what we share, for the gift without the giver is bare.
James Russell Lowell
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Where Church and State are habitually associated, it is natural that minds, even of a high order, should unconsciously come to regard religion as only a subtler mode of police.
James Russell Lowell
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Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide, In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side Some great cause, some great decision, offering each the bloom or blight, And the choice goes by forever, ’twixt that darkness and that light.
James Russell Lowell
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There is no self-delusion more fatal than that which makes the conscience dreamy with the anodyne of lofty sentiments, while the life is groveling and sensual
James Russell Lowell
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Take winter as you find him, and he turns out to be a thoroughly honest fellow with no nonsense in him, which is a great comfort in the long-run.
James Russell Lowell
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It is curious how tyrannical the habit of reading is, and what shifts we make to escape thinking. There is no bore we dread being left alone with so much as our own minds.
James Russell Lowell
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They are slaves who fear to speak For the fallen and the weak They are slaves who will not choose Hatred, scoffing, and abuse, Rather than in silence shrink From the truth they needs must think They are slaves who dare not be In the right with two or three.
James Russell Lowell
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The child is not mine as the first was, I cannot sing it to rest, I cannot lift it up fatherly And bliss it upon my breast Yet it lies in my little one's cradle And sits in my little one's chair, And the light of the heaven she's gone to Transfigures its golden hair.
James Russell Lowell
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Not but wut abstract war is horrid, I sign to thet with all my heart, But civilysation doos git forrid Sometimes, upon a powder-cart.
James Russell Lowell
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Good luck is the willing handmaid of upright, energetic character, and conscientious observance of duty.
James Russell Lowell
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No price is set on the lavish summer June may be had by the poorest comer.
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