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Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,- Yet that scaffold sways the Future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.

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
Behinds
Scaffold
Behind
Throne
Forever
Thrones
Within
Unknown
Wrong
Keeping
Future
Shadow
Truth
Watches
Watch
Sways

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To make the common marvelous is the test of genius.
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The one thing finished in this hasty world.
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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.
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Slow are the steps of freedom, but her feet turn never backward.
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How I do love the earth. I feel it thrill under my feet. I feel somehow as if it were conscious of my love, as if something passed into my dancing blood from it.
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In creating, the only hard thing is to begin: a grass blade's no easier to make than an oak.
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Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave.
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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.
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We look at death through the cheap-glazed windows of the flesh, and believe him the monster which the flawed and cracked glass represents him.
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Not as all other women are Is she that to my soul is dear Her glorious fancies come from far, Beneath the silver evening star, And yet her heart is ever near.
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No sincere desire of doing good need make an enemy of a single human being that philanthropy has surely a flaw in it which cannot sympathize with the oppressor equally as with the oppressed.
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That cause is strong which has, not a multitude, but one strong man behind it.
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A great man is made up of qualities that meet or make great occasions.
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Freedom is the only law which genius knows.
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Analysis is carried into everything. Even Deity is subjected to chemical tests.
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The greatest homage we can pay to truth, is to use it.
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Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne.
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The question of common sense is always: 'what is it good for?' - a question which would abolish the rose and be answered triumphantly by the cabbage.
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A stray hair, by its continued irritation, may give more annoyance than a smart blow.
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