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Truth is quite beyond the reach of satire. There is so brave a simplicity in her that she can no more be made ridiculous than an oak or a pine.

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
Made
Satire
Simplicity
Ridiculous
Brave
Reach
Beyond
Quite
Pine
Truth
Oaks

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Communism means barbarism.
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The devil loves nothing better than the intolerance of reformers.
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Not failure, but low aim, is crime.
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We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage.
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In the ocean of baseness, the deeper we get, the easier the sinking.
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Ef you want peace, the thing you've gut to du Is jes' to show you're up to fightin', tu.
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Fashion being the art of those who must purchase notice at some cheaper rate than that of being beautiful, loves to do rash and extravagant things. She must be forever new, or she becomes insipid.
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It is not the insurrections of ignorance that are dangerous, but the revolts of the intelligence.
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What means this glory round our feet, The Magi mused, more bright than morn! And voices chanted clear and sweet, To-day the Prince of Peace is born.
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Not as all other women are Is she that to my soul is dear Her glorious fancies come from far, Beneath the silver evening star, And yet her heart is ever near.
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In the earliest ages science was poetry, as in the later poetry has become science.
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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.
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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.
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They are slaves who fear to speak, for the fallen and the weak.
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It is by presence of mind in untried emergencies that the native metal of man is tested.
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Good luck is the willing handmaid of upright, energetic character, and conscientious observance of duty.
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True freedom is to share All the chains our brothers wear, And, with heart and hand, to be Earnest to make others free!
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New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.
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What a man pays for bread and butter is worth its market value, and no more. What he pays for love's sake is gold indeed, which has a lure for angels' eyes, and rings well upon God's touchstone.
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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.
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