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Men! whose boast it is that ye Come of fathers brave and free, If there breathe on earth a slave, Are ye truly free and brave?

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
Brave
Whose
Truly
Free
Boast
Father
Fathers
Earth
Breathe
Come
Slavery
Men
Slave

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A word once vulgarized can never be rehabilitated.
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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.
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The discontent with the existing order of things pervaded the atmosphere, wherever the conditions were favorable, long before Columbus, seeking the back door of Asia, found himself knocking at the front door of America.
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Making one object, in outward or inward nature, more holy to a single heart is reward enough for a life for the more sympathies we gain or awaken for what is beautiful, by so much deeper will be our sympathy for that which is most beautiful,--the human soul!
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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.
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I who still pray at morning and at eve Thrice in my life perhaps have truly prayed, Thrice stirred below conscious self Have felt that perfect disenthrallment which is God.
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The flowers or weeds that spring up tomorrow are in the seeds we sow today. The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinions.
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Incredulity robs us of many pleasures, and gives us nothing in return.
James Russell Lowell
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What visionary tints the year puts on, When falling leaves falter through motionless air Or numbly cling and shiver to be gone! How shimmer the low flats and pastures bare, As with her nectar Hebe Autumn fills The bowl between me and those distant hills, And smiles and shakes abroad her misty, tremulous hair!
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Not what we give, but what we share, for the gift without the giver is bare.
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Behind the dim unknown, Standeth God with the shadow, keeping watch above his own.
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But life is sweet, though all that makes it sweet. Lessen like sound of friends departing feet And death is beautiful as feet of friend. Coming with welcome at our journey's end.
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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Life is the jailer, death the angel sent to draw the unwilling bolts and set us free.
James Russell Lowell
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Folks never understand the folks they hate.
James Russell Lowell
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When I was a beggarly boy, And lived in a cellar damp, I had not a friend nor a toy, But I had Aladdin's lamp.
James Russell Lowell
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Comparative criticism teaches us that moral and aesthetic defects are more nearly related than is commonly supposed.
James Russell Lowell
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Winds wanders, and dews drip earthward Rains fall, suns rise and set Earth whirls, and all but to prosper A poor little violet.
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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Who knows whither the clouds have fled? In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake And the eyes forget the tears they have shed, The heart forgets its sorrow and ache.
James Russell Lowell