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Some day the soft Ideal that we wooed confronts us fiercely, foe-beset, pursued, and cries reproachful: Was it then my praise, and not myself was loved? Prove now thy truth I claim of thee the promise of thy youth.

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
Promise
Soft
Prove
Claim
Wooed
Youth
Ideal
Beset
Loved
Thee
Confronts
Truth
Claims
Fiercely
Love
Ideals
Foe
Cry
Cries
Praise
Pursued

More quotes by 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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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.
James Russell Lowell
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Fate loves best such syllables as are sweet and sonorous on the tongue.
James Russell Lowell
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If youth be a defect, it is one that we outgrow only too soon.
James Russell Lowell
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Whoever can endure unmixed delight, whoever can tolerate music and painting and poetry all in one, whoever wishes to be rid of thought and to let the busy anvils of the brain be silent for a time, let him read in the Faery Queen.
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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The green grass floweth like a stream Into the oceans's blue.
James Russell Lowell
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When I was a beggarly boy, And lived in a cellar damp, I had not a friend nor a toy, But I had Aladdin's lamp.
James Russell Lowell
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Incredulity robs us of many pleasures, and gives us nothing in return.
James Russell Lowell
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Behind the dim unknown, Standeth God with the shadow, keeping watch above his own.
James Russell Lowell
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So we're all right, an' I, for one, Don't think our cause'll lose in vally By rammin' Scriptur' in our gun, An' gittin' Natur' for an ally.
James Russell Lowell
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Fools, when their roof-tree falls, think it doomsday.
James Russell Lowell
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The quiet tenderness of Chaucer, where you almost seem to hear the hot tears falling, and the simple choking words sobbed out.
James Russell Lowell
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A sneer is the weapon of the weak. Like other devil's weapons, it is always cunningly ready to our hand, and there is more poison in the handle than in the point.
James Russell Lowell
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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.
James Russell Lowell
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That cause is strong which has, not a multitude, but one strong man behind it.
James Russell Lowell
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How little inventiveness there is in man, Grave copier of copies.
James Russell Lowell
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The riches of scholarship, the benignities of literature, defy fortune and outlive calamity. They are beyond the reach of thief or moth or rust. As they cannot be inherited, so they cannot, be alienated.
James Russell Lowell
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Life is the jailer, death the angel sent to draw the unwilling bolts and set us free.
James Russell Lowell
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The one thing finished in this hasty world.
James Russell Lowell