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Christ was the first true democrat that ever breathed, as the old dramatist Dekkar said he was the first true gentleman.

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
Ever
Firsts
Dramatist
First
Breathed
Gentleman
Democrat
Democracy
Christ
True

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An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.
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Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us.
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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.
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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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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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O visionary world, condition strange, Where naught abiding is but only change.
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There comes Emerson first, whose rich words, every one, Are like gold nails in temples to hang trophies on.
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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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Better one bite at forty, of truths bitter rind, than the hot wine that gushed from the vintage of twenty.
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Borrowed garments never keep one warm.
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Who is it needs such flawless shafts as fate? What archer of his arrows is so choice, or hits the white so surely?
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Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide, In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side Some great cause, some great decision, offering each the bloom or blight, And the choice goes by forever, ’twixt that darkness and that light.
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Large charity doth never soil, but only whitens soft white hands.
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Democracy is that form of society, no matter what its political classification, in which every man has a chance and knows that he has it.
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Analysis is carried into everything. Even Deity is subjected to chemical tests.
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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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The fireflies o'er the meadow In pulses come and go.
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Ye come and go incessant we remain Safe in the hallowed quiets of the past Be reverent, ye who flit and are forgot, Of faith so nobly realized as this.
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Fate loves best such syllables as are sweet and sonorous on the tongue.
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It is not the insurrections of ignorance that are dangerous, but the revolts of the intelligence.
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