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I don't believe in principle, but I do in interest.

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
Interest
Believe
Curiosity
Principle
Principles

More quotes by 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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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.
James Russell Lowell
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To win the secret of a weed's plain heart.
James Russell Lowell
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Christ was the first true democrat that ever breathed, as the old dramatist Dekkar said he was the first true gentleman.
James Russell Lowell
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Stories now, to suit a public taste, must be half epigram, half pleasant vice.
James Russell Lowell
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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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The Don Quixote of one generation may live to hear himself called the savior of society by the next.
James Russell Lowell
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A stray hair, by its continued irritation, may give more annoyance than a smart blow.
James Russell Lowell
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One learns more metaphysics from a single temptation than from all the philosophers.
James Russell Lowell
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It is only the intellect that can be thoroughly and hideously wicked. It can forget everything in the attainment of its ends. The heart recoils in its retired some drops of childhood's dew still linger, defying manhood's fiery noon.
James Russell Lowell
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Our seasons have no fixed returns, Without our will they come and go At noon our sudden summer burns, Ere sunset all is snow.
James Russell Lowell
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The question of common sense is always: 'what is it good for?' - a question which would abolish the rose and be answered triumphantly by the cabbage.
James Russell Lowell
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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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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
James Russell Lowell
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Who is it needs such flawless shafts as fate? What archer of his arrows is so choice, or hits the white so surely?
James Russell Lowell
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He gives us the very quintessence of perception,-the clearly crystalized precipitation of all that is most precious in the ferment of impression after the impertinent and obtrusive particulars have evaporated from the memory.
James Russell Lowell
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Life is constantly weighing us in very sensitive scales, and telling every one of us precisely what his real weight is to the last grain of dust.
James Russell Lowell
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Aspiration sees only one side of every question possession many.
James Russell Lowell
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Let us be of good cheer, however, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never come.
James Russell Lowell
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Be He nowhere else, God is in all that liberates and lifts, in all that humbles, sweetens, and consoles.
James Russell Lowell