Quote

A sneer is the weapon of the weak. Like other devil's weapons, it is always cunningly ready to our hand, and there is more poison in the handle than in the point.

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
Point
Weapon
Hands
Poison
Always
Handle
Like
Devil
Weapons
Weak
Ready
Cunningly
Hand
Sneer

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Not suffering, but faint heart, is worst of woes.
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In all literary history there is no such figure as Dante, no such homogeneousness of life and works, such loyalty to ideas, such sublime irrecognition of the unessential.
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What men call luck Is the prerogative of valiant souls, The fealty life pays its rightful kings.
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It was in making education not only common to all, but in some sense compulsory on all, that the destiny of the free republics of America was practically settled.
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Large charity doth never soil, but only whitens soft white hands.
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The New World's sons from England's breast we drew Such milk as bids remember whence we came, Proud of her past wherefrom our future grew, This window we inscribe with Raleigh's fame.
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To make the common marvelous is the test of genius.
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Fate loves best such syllables as are sweet and sonorous on the tongue.
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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.
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If the devil take a less hateful shape to us than to our fathers, he is as busy with us as with them.
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To win the secret of a weed's plain heart.
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Love lives on, and hath a power to bless when they who loved are hidden in the grave.
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Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust, Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 't is prosperous to be just Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside, Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified.
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Nature, they say, doth dote, And cannot make a man Save on some worn-out plan, Repeating us by rote.
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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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In creating, the only hard thing is to begin: a grass blade's no easier to make than an oak.
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Through aisles of long-drawn centuries my spirit walks in thought.
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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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