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

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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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Some day the soft Ideal that we wooed confronts us fiercely, foe-beset, pursued, and cries reproachful: Was it then my praise, and not myself was loved? Prove now thy truth I claim of thee the promise of thy youth.
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Not suffering, but faint heart, is worst of woes.
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He who keeps his faith only, cannot be discrowned.
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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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A word once vulgarized can never be rehabilitated.
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No man can produce great things who is not thoroughly sincere in dealing with himself, who would not exchange the finest show for the poorest reality, who does not so love his work that he is not only glad to give himself for it, but finds rather a gain than a sacrifice in the surrender.
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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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The ash her purple drops forgivingly And sadly, breaking not the general hush The maple swamps glow like a sunset sea, Each leaf a ripple with its separate flush All round the wood's edge creeps the skirting blaze, Ere the rain falls, the cautious farmer burns his brush.
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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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Great truths are portions of the soul of man Great souls are portions of eternity.
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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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There is only one thing better than tradition and that is the original and eternal life out of which all tradition takes its rise.
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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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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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It is not the insurrections of ignorance that are dangerous, but the revolts of the intelligence.
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To be young is surely the best, if the most precarious, gift of life.
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The quiet tenderness of Chaucer, where you almost seem to hear the hot tears falling, and the simple choking words sobbed out.
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The snow had begun in the gloaming, and busily all the night had been heaping field and highway with a silence deep and white.
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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.
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