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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.

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
Never
Appear
Would
Saws
Men
Pride
Poetry
Full
Heaven
Lives
Poesy
Fear
Pierce

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I have always been of the mind that in a democracy manners are the only effective weapons against the bowie-knife.
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Be He nowhere else, God is in all that liberates and lifts, in all that humbles, sweetens, and consoles.
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Things always seem fairer when we look back at them, and it is out of that inaccessible tower of the past that Longing leans and beckons.
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You've gut to git up airly Ef you want to take in God.
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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.
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Where Church and State are habitually associated, it is natural that minds, even of a high order, should unconsciously come to regard religion as only a subtler mode of police.
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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 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.
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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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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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Metaphor is no argument, though it be sometimes the gunpowder to drive one home, and imbed it in the memory.
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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.
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Over our manhood bend the skies Against our fallen and traitor lives The great winds utter prophecies With our faint hearts the mountain strives, Its arms outstretched, the druid wood Waits with its benedicite And to our age’s drowsy blood Still shouts the inspiring sea.
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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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I willingly confess to so great a partiality for trees as tempts me to respect a man in exact proportion to his respect for them.
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Not only around our infancy Doth heaven with all its splendors lie Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, We Sinais climb and know it not.
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Life is the jailer, death the angel sent to draw the unwilling bolts and set us free.
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Who speaks the truth stabs falsehood to the heart.
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It is good To lengthen to the last a sunny mood.
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