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It is curious how tyrannical the habit of reading is...

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
Reason
Tyrannical
Reasoning
Curious
Habit
Reading

More quotes by James Russell Lowell

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Be He nowhere else, God is in all that liberates and lifts, in all that humbles, sweetens, and consoles.
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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What visionary tints the year puts on, When falling leaves falter through motionless air Or numbly cling and shiver to be gone! How shimmer the low flats and pastures bare, As with her nectar Hebe Autumn fills The bowl between me and those distant hills, And smiles and shakes abroad her misty, tremulous hair!
James Russell Lowell
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It is the vain endeavor to make ourselves what we are not that has strewn history with so many broken purposes and lives left in the rough.
James Russell Lowell
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Not as all other women are Is she that to my soul is dear Her glorious fancies come from far, Beneath the silver evening star, And yet her heart is ever near.
James Russell Lowell
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You've gut to git up airly Ef you want to take in God.
James Russell Lowell
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They talk about their Pilgrim blood, their birthright high and holy! a mountain-stream that ends in mud thinks is melancholy.
James Russell Lowell
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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.
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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Wut 's words to them whose faith an' truth On war's red techstone rang true metal Who ventered life an' love an' youth For the gret prize o' death in battle?
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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Folks never understand the folks they hate.
James Russell Lowell
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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.
James Russell Lowell
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Who speaks the truth stabs falsehood to the heart.
James Russell Lowell
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In the ocean of baseness, the deeper we get, the easier the sinking.
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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Comparative criticism teaches us that moral and aesthetic defects are more nearly related than is commonly supposed.
James Russell Lowell
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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.
James Russell Lowell
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It is good To lengthen to the last a sunny mood.
James Russell Lowell
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They are slaves who fear to speak, for the fallen and the weak.
James Russell Lowell