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A poet must need be before his own age, to be even with posterity

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
Must
Needs
Even
Posterity
Poet
Age
Need

More quotes by James Russell Lowell

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It is curious how tyrannical the habit of reading is...
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The Don Quixote of one generation may live to hear himself called the savior of society by the next.
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True freedom is to share All the chains our brothers wear, And, with heart and hand, to be Earnest to make others free!
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Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave.
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The greatest homage we can pay to truth, is to use it.
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Comparative criticism teaches us that moral and aesthetic defects are more nearly related than is commonly supposed.
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Here come the hum the golden bees Underneath full blossomed trees, At once with glowing fruit and flowers crowned.
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The one thing finished in this hasty world.
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It is by presence of mind in untried emergencies that the native metal of man is tested.
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Our American republic will endure only as long as the ideas of the men who founded it continue dominant.
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A ginooine statesman should be on his guard, if he must hev beliefs, not to b'lieve 'em too hard.
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What a man pays for bread and butter is worth its market value, and no more. What he pays for love's sake is gold indeed, which has a lure for angels' eyes, and rings well upon God's touchstone.
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Wealth may be an excellent thing, for it means power, and it means leisure, it means liberty.
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The devil loves nothing better than the intolerance of reformers.
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The snow had begun in the gloaming, and busily all the night had been heaping field and highway with a silence deep and white.
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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.
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Suddenly all the sky is hid As with the shutting of a lid, One by one great drops are falling Doubtful and slow, Down the pane they are crookedly crawling, And the wind breathes low Slowly the circles widen on the river, Widen and mingle, one and all Here and there the slenderer flowers shiver, Struck by an icy rain-drop’s fall.
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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Great truths are portions of the soul of man Great souls are portions of eternity.
James Russell Lowell
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Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes, - they were souls that stood alone, While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone, Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine, By one man's plain truth to manhood and to God's supreme design.
James Russell Lowell