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The pressure of public opinion is like the pressure of the atmosphere you can't see it - but all the same, it is sixteen pounds to the square inch.

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
Inches
Pounds
Atmosphere
Pressure
Opinion
Inch
Public
Sixteen
Like
Square
Squares

More quotes by James Russell Lowell

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They have rights who dare maintain them.
James Russell Lowell
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God is not dumb, that he should speak no more If thou hast wanderings in the wilderness And find'st not Sinai, 'tis thy soul is poor.
James Russell Lowell
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There is surely room for yet another schoolmaster when a score of seers advertise themselves in Boston newspapers.
James Russell Lowell
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All free governments, whatever their name, are in reality governments by public opinion and it is on the quality of this public opinion that their prosperity depends. It is, therefore, their first duty to purify the element from which they draw the breath of life.
James Russell Lowell
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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.
James Russell Lowell
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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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Not suffering, but faint heart, is worst of woes.
James Russell Lowell
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Suddenly all the sky is hid As with the shutting of a lid, One by one great drops are falling Doubtful and slow, Down the pane they are crookedly crawling, And the wind breathes low Slowly the circles widen on the river, Widen and mingle, one and all Here and there the slenderer flowers shiver, Struck by an icy rain-drop’s fall.
James Russell Lowell
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Metaphor is no argument, though it be sometimes the gunpowder to drive one home, and imbed it in the memory.
James Russell Lowell
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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!
James Russell Lowell
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Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes, - they were souls that stood alone, While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone, Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine, By one man's plain truth to manhood and to God's supreme design.
James Russell Lowell
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The fireflies o'er the meadow In pulses come and go.
James Russell Lowell
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All the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.
James Russell Lowell
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Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof it is temporary expedient, often wise in party politics, almost sure to be unwise in statesmanship.
James Russell Lowell
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There are two kinds of genius. The first and highest may be said to speak out of the eternal to the present, and must compel its age to understand it the second understands its age, and tells it what it wishes to be told.
James Russell Lowell
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Democracy is nothing more than an experiment in government, more likely to succeed in a new soil, but likely to be tried in all soils, which must stand or fall on its own merits as others have done before it. For there is no trick of perpetual motion in politics any more than in mechanics.
James Russell Lowell
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The dandelions and buttercups gild all the lawn: the drowsy bee stumbles among the clover tops, and summer sweetens all to me.
James Russell Lowell
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The pale and quiet moon Makes her calm forehead bare, And the last fragments of the storm, Like shattered rigging from a fight at sea, Silent and few, are drifting over me.
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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Good luck is the willing handmaid of upright, energetic character, and conscientious observance of duty.
James Russell Lowell