Quote

Men have their intellectual ancestry, and the likeness of some one of them is forever unexpectedly flashing out in the features of a descendant, it may be after a gap of several centuries. In the parliament of the present every man represents a constituency of the past.

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
Past
Gaps
Flashing
May
Centuries
Unexpectedly
Every
Features
Likeness
Men
Several
Ancestry
Intellectual
Descendants
Present
Parliament
Century
Originality
Descendant
Forever
Represents
Constituency

More quotes by James Russell Lowell

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All thoughtful men are solitary and original in themselves.
James Russell Lowell
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The devil loves nothing better than the intolerance of reformers.
James Russell Lowell
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Through aisles of long-drawn centuries my spirit walks in thought.
James Russell Lowell
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Earth's noblest thing,-a woman perfected.
James Russell Lowell
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One learns more metaphysics from a single temptation than from all the philosophers.
James Russell Lowell
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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.
James Russell Lowell
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How I do love the earth. I feel it thrill under my feet. I feel somehow as if it were conscious of my love, as if something passed into my dancing blood from it.
James Russell Lowell
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The green grass floweth like a stream Into the oceans's blue.
James Russell Lowell
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Life is constantly weighing us in very sensitive scales, and telling every one of us precisely what his real weight is to the last grain of dust.
James Russell Lowell
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Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,- Yet that scaffold sways the Future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.
James Russell Lowell
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The future works out great men's destinies The present is enough for common souls, Who, never looking forward, are indeed Mere clay wherein the footprints of their age Are petrified forever.
James Russell Lowell
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Comparative criticism teaches us that moral and aesthetic defects are more nearly related than is commonly supposed.
James Russell Lowell
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I tell ye wut, my judgment is you're pooty sure to fail, Ez long 'z the head keeps turnin' back for counsel to the the tail.
James Russell Lowell
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The child is not mine as the first was, I cannot sing it to rest, I cannot lift it up fatherly And bliss it upon my breast Yet it lies in my little one's cradle And sits in my little one's chair, And the light of the heaven she's gone to Transfigures its golden hair.
James Russell Lowell
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The question of common sense is always: 'what is it good for?' - a question which would abolish the rose and be answered triumphantly by the cabbage.
James Russell Lowell
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Humbleness is always grace always dignity
James Russell Lowell
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The ultimate result of protecting fools from their folly is to fill the planet full of fools.
James Russell Lowell
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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.
James Russell Lowell
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The rich man's sons inherits cares The bank may break, the factory burn, A breath may burst his bubble shares, And soft, white hands could hardly earn A living that would serve his turn.
James Russell Lowell
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Faith in God, faith in man, faith in work: this is the short formula in which we may sum up the teachings of the founders of New England,--a creed ample enough for this life and the next.
James Russell Lowell