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Most men make the voyage of life as if they carried sealed orders which they were not to open till they were fairly in mid-ocean.

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
Carried
Till
Ocean
Open
Sealed
Order
Voyage
Make
Voyages
Men
Orders
Life
Fairly

More quotes by James Russell Lowell

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Human nature has a much greater genius for sameness than for originality.
James Russell Lowell
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The ultimate result of protecting fools from their folly is to fill the planet full of fools.
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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.
James Russell Lowell
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His heart kep' goin' pity-pat, But hern went pity-Zekle.
James Russell Lowell
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We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage.
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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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How little inventiveness there is in man, Grave copier of copies.
James Russell Lowell
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I love her with a love as still As a broad river's peaceful might, Which by high tower and lowly mill, Goes wandering at its own will, And yet does ever flow aright.
James Russell Lowell
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Through aisles of long-drawn centuries my spirit walks in thought.
James Russell Lowell
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That love for one, from which there doth not spring Wide love for all, is but a worthless thing.
James Russell Lowell
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Not but wut abstract war is horrid, I sign to thet with all my heart, But civilysation doos git forrid Sometimes, upon a powder-cart.
James Russell Lowell
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Never did Poesy appear So full of heaven to me, as when I saw how it would pierce through pride and fear To the lives of coarsest men.
James Russell Lowell
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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.
James Russell Lowell
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The rich man's sons inherits cares The bank may break, the factory burn, A breath may burst his bubble shares, And soft, white hands could hardly earn A living that would serve his turn.
James Russell Lowell
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The English Puritans pulled down church and state to rebuild Zion on the ruins, and all the while it was not Zion, but America, they were building.
James Russell Lowell
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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.
James Russell Lowell
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In life's small things be resolute and great To keep thy muscle trained Know'st thou when Fate Thy measure takes, or when she'll say to thee, I find thee worthy do this deed for me?
James Russell Lowell
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And but two ways are offered to our will, Toil with rare triumph, ease with safe disgrace, The problem still for us and all of human race.
James Russell Lowell
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Freedom is the only law which genius knows.
James Russell Lowell
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If the devil take a less hateful shape to us than to our fathers, he is as busy with us as with them.
James Russell Lowell