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The discontent with the existing order of things pervaded the atmosphere, wherever the conditions were favorable, long before Columbus, seeking the back door of Asia, found himself knocking at the front door of America.

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
Found
Wherever
Order
Atmosphere
Pervaded
America
Seeking
Favorable
Back
Door
Columbus
Long
Fronts
Discontent
Things
Front
Knocking
Doors
Asia
Conditions
Existing

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The material of thought re-acts upon the thought itself.
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I love her with a love as still As a broad river's peaceful might, Which by high tower and lowly mill, Goes wandering at its own will, And yet does ever flow aright.
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Stories now, to suit a public taste, must be half epigram, half pleasant vice.
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It is the rooted instinct in men to admire what is better and more beautiful than themselves.
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Did man e'er live Saw priest or woman yet forgive?
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In the earliest ages science was poetry, as in the later poetry has become science.
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No man can produce great things who is not thoroughly sincere in dealing with himself.
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Let us be of good cheer, however, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never come.
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Whoever can endure unmixed delight, whoever can tolerate music and painting and poetry all in one, whoever wishes to be rid of thought and to let the busy anvils of the brain be silent for a time, let him read in the Faery Queen.
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A great man is made up of qualities that meet or make great occasions.
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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!
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He gives us the very quintessence of perception,-the clearly crystalized precipitation of all that is most precious in the ferment of impression after the impertinent and obtrusive particulars have evaporated from the memory.
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The only faith that wears well and holds its color in all weathers is that which is woven of conviction and set with the sharp mordant of experience.
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It is quite too common a practice, both in readers and the more superficial class of critics, to judge a book by what it is not, a matter much easier to determine than what it is.
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Fools, when their roof-tree falls, think it doomsday.
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Behind the dim unknown, Standeth God with the shadow, keeping watch above his own.
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Not but wut abstract war is horrid, I sign to thet with all my heart, But civilysation doos git forrid Sometimes, upon a powder-cart.
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It is only by instigation of the wrongs of men that what are called the Rights of Man become turbulent and dangerous.
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True freedom is to share All the chains our brothers wear, And, with heart and hand, to be Earnest to make others free!
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