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Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof.

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
Compromise
Poor
Makes
Good
Statesmanship
Unwise
Umbrella
Roof

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The material of thought re-acts upon the thought itself.
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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.
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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.
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How little inventiveness there is in man, Grave copier of copies.
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It is quite too common a practice, both in readers and the more superficial class of critics, to judge a book by what it is not, a matter much easier to determine than what it is.
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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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Over our manhood bend the skies Against our fallen and traitor lives The great winds utter prophecies With our faint hearts the mountain strives, Its arms outstretched, the druid wood Waits with its benedicite And to our age’s drowsy blood Still shouts the inspiring sea.
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Human nature has a much greater genius for sameness than for originality.
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Each day the world is born anew for him who takes it rightly.
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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.
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Truth always has a bewitching savor of newness in it, and novelty at the first taste recalls that original sweetness to the tongue but alas for him who would make the one a substitute for the other.
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Wut 's words to them whose faith an' truth On war's red techstone rang true metal Who ventered life an' love an' youth For the gret prize o' death in battle?
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A nature wise With finding in itself the types of all, With watching from the dim verge of the time What things to be are visible in the gleams Thrown forward on them from the luminous past, Wise with the history of its own frail heart, With reverence and sorrow, and with love, Broad as the world, for freedom and for man.
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A man is old when he can pass an apple orchard and not remember the stomachache.
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I have always been of the mind that in a democracy manners are the only effective weapons against the bowie-knife.
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There is no work of genius which has not been the delight of mankind, no word of genius to which the human heart and soul have not sooner or later responded.
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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.
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Not what we give, but what we share, for the gift without the giver is bare.
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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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