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They talk about their Pilgrim blood, their birthright high and holy! a mountain-stream that ends in mud thinks is melancholy.

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
Talk
Stream
Ends
Melancholy
Thinking
Streams
Thinks
Ancestry
Mountain
Birthright
Holy
Pilgrim
Blood
Mud
High
Ancestor

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Not failure, but low aim, is crime.
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It is not without reason that fame is awarded only after death. The cloud-dust of notoriety which follows and envelops the men who drive with the wind bewilders contemporary judgment.
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Darkness is strong, and so is Sin, But surely God endures forever!
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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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A word once vulgarized can never be rehabilitated.
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The first lesson of life is to burn our own smoke that is, not to inflict on outsiders our personal sorrows and petty morbidness, not to keep thinking of ourselves as exceptional cases.
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It is not the insurrections of ignorance that are dangerous, but the revolts of the intelligence.
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An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.
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How little inventiveness there is in man, Grave copier of copies.
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Against the windows the storm comes dashing, Through tattered foliage the hail tears crashing, The blue lightning flashes, The rapid hail clashes... The thunder is rumbling And crashing and crumbling.
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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.
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Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide.
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There is only one thing better than tradition and that is the original and eternal life out of which all tradition takes its rise.
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There is no self-delusion more fatal than that which makes the conscience dreamy with the anodyne of lofty sentiments, while the life is groveling and sensual
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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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Behind the dim unknown, Standeth God with the shadow, keeping watch above his own.
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And I honor the man who is willing to sink half his present repute for the freedom to think, and, when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak, Will risk t' other half for the freedom to speak.
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No man can produce great things who is not thoroughly sincere in dealing with himself, who would not exchange the finest show for the poorest reality, who does not so love his work that he is not only glad to give himself for it, but finds rather a gain than a sacrifice in the surrender.
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Ah, in this world, where every guiding thread Ends suddenly in the one sure centre, death, The visionary hand of Might-have-been Alone can fill Desire's cup to the brim!
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