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

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Analysis is carried into everything. Even Deity is subjected to chemical tests.
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Old gold has a civilizing virtue which new gold must grow old to be capable of secreting.
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Borrowed garments never keep one warm.
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No price is set on the lavish summer June may be had by the poorest comer.
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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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Love lives on, and hath a power to bless when they who loved are hidden in the grave.
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The devil loves nothing better than the intolerance of reformers.
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A profound common sense is the best genius for statesmanship.
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The New World's sons from England's breast we drew Such milk as bids remember whence we came, Proud of her past wherefrom our future grew, This window we inscribe with Raleigh's fame.
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Large charity doth never soil, but only whitens soft white hands.
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Better one bite at forty, of truths bitter rind, than the hot wine that gushed from the vintage of twenty.
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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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They are slaves who fear to speak, for the fallen and the weak.
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That love for one, from which there doth not spring Wide love for all, is but a worthless thing.
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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.
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Life seems a jest of Fate's contriving.
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Those who know the truth are not equal to those who love it Confucius All truth is safe and nothing else is safe, but he who keeps back truth, or withholds it from men, from motives of expediency, is either a coward or a criminal.
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Darkness is strong, and so is Sin, But surely God endures forever!
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Like streams that keep a summer mind Snow-hid in Jenooary.
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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