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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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James Russell Lowell
Age: 72 †
Born: 1819
Born: February 22
Died: 1891
Died: August 12
Diplomat
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Poet
Writer
Cambridge
Massachusetts
Rain
Suns
Sun
Rains
Wind
Prosper
Poor
Dew
Fall
Violet
Whirls
Earth
Winds
Dews
Littles
Wander
Drip
Little
Rise
Wanders

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In creating, the only hard thing is to begin: a grass blade's no easier to make than an oak.
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Not suffering, but faint heart, is worst of woes.
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They have rights who dare maintain them.
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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.
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So we're all right, an' I, for one, Don't think our cause'll lose in vally By rammin' Scriptur' in our gun, An' gittin' Natur' for an ally.
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The Don Quixote of one generation may live to hear himself called the savior of society by the next.
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Old gold has a civilizing virtue which new gold must grow old to be capable of secreting.
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Stern men with empires in their brains.
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The material of thought re-acts upon the thought itself.
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It is curious how tyrannical the habit of reading is, and what shifts we make to escape thinking. There is no bore we dread being left alone with so much as our own minds.
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In the storm, like a prophet o'ermaddened, Thou singest and tossest thy branches Thy heart with the terror is gladdened, Thou forebodest the dread avalanches.... In the calm thou o'erstretchest the valleys With thine arms, as if blessings imploring, Like an old king led forth from his palace, When his people to battle are pouring.
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Large charity doth never soil, but only whitens soft white hands.
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They are slaves who fear to speak For the fallen and the weak They are slaves who will not choose Hatred, scoffing, and abuse, Rather than in silence shrink From the truth they needs must think They are slaves who dare not be In the right with two or three.
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One learns more metaphysics from a single temptation than from all the philosophers.
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The riches of scholarship, the benignities of literature, defy fortune and outlive calamity. They are beyond the reach of thief or moth or rust. As they cannot be inherited, so they cannot, be alienated.
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It is not the insurrections of ignorance that are dangerous, but the revolts of the intelligence.
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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.
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The only faith that wears well and holds its color in all weathers is that which is woven of conviction and set with the sharp mordant of experience.
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The only conclusive evidence of a man's sincerity is that he gives himself for a principle. Words, money, all things else, are comparatively easy to give away but when a man makes a gift of his daily life and practice, it is plain that the truth, whatever it may be, has taken possession of him.
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Never did Poesy appear So full of heaven to me, as when I saw how it would pierce through pride and fear To the lives of coarsest men.
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