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And I honor the man who is willing to sink half his present repute for the freedom to think, and, when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak, Will risk t' other half for the freedom to speak.

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
Half
Cause
Freedom
Risk
Speak
Present
Strong
Willing
Thought
Liberty
Repute
Men
Wisdom
Sink
Think
Causes
Weak
Thinking
Law
Honor

More quotes by James Russell Lowell

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We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage.
James Russell Lowell
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It is curious for one who studies the action and reaction of national literature on each other, to see the humor of Swift and Sterne and Fielding, after filtering through Richter, reappear in Carlyle with a tinge of Germanism that makes it novel, alien, or even displeasing, as the case may be, to the English mind.
James Russell Lowell
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The stiff rails were softened to swan's-down, and still fluttered down the snow.
James Russell Lowell
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Ye come and go incessant we remain Safe in the hallowed quiets of the past Be reverent, ye who flit and are forgot, Of faith so nobly realized as this.
James Russell Lowell
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Humbleness is always grace always dignity
James Russell Lowell
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And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light.
James Russell Lowell
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To put more faith in lies and hate than truth and love, is the true atheism.
James Russell Lowell
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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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The pressure of public opinion is like the pressure of the atmosphere you can't see it - but all the same, it is sixteen pounds to the square inch.
James Russell Lowell
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Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do that day, which must be done, whether you like it or not.
James Russell Lowell
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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.
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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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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Wealth may be an excellent thing, for it means power, and it means leisure, it means liberty.
James Russell Lowell
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I willingly confess to so great a partiality for trees as tempts me to respect a man in exact proportion to his respect for them.
James Russell Lowell
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Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.
James Russell Lowell
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Better one bite at forty, of truths bitter rind, than the hot wine that gushed from the vintage of twenty.
James Russell Lowell
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Who knows whither the clouds have fled? In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake And the eyes forget the tears they have shed, The heart forgets its sorrow and ache.
James Russell Lowell
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That love for one, from which there doth not spring Wide love for all, is but a worthless thing.
James Russell Lowell
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But life is sweet, though all that makes it sweet. Lessen like sound of friends departing feet And death is beautiful as feet of friend. Coming with welcome at our journey's end.
James Russell Lowell