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The material of thought re-acts upon the thought itself.

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
Acts
Material
Materials
Upon
Thought

More quotes by James Russell Lowell

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One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning.
James Russell Lowell
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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.
James Russell Lowell
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A ginooine statesman should be on his guard, if he must hev beliefs, not to b'lieve 'em too hard.
James Russell Lowell
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If youth be a defect, it is one that we outgrow only too soon.
James Russell Lowell
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That pernicious sentiment, Our country, right or wrong.
James Russell Lowell
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Behind the dim unknown, Standeth God with the shadow, keeping watch above his own.
James Russell Lowell
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True scholarship consists in knowing not what things exist, but what they mean it is not memory but judgment.
James Russell Lowell
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Metaphor is no argument, though it be sometimes the gunpowder to drive one home, and imbed it in the memory.
James Russell Lowell
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Wealth may be an excellent thing, for it means power, and it means leisure, it means liberty.
James Russell Lowell
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It is the rooted instinct in men to admire what is better and more beautiful than themselves.
James Russell Lowell
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Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character.
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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Fashion being the art of those who must purchase notice at some cheaper rate than that of being beautiful, loves to do rash and extravagant things. She must be forever new, or she becomes insipid.
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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An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.
James Russell Lowell
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Fools, when their roof-tree falls, think it doomsday.
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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Not only around our infancy Doth heaven with all its splendors lie Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, We Sinais climb and know it not.
James Russell Lowell
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Sentiment is intellectualized emotion emotion precipitated, as it were, in pretty crystals by the fancy.
James Russell Lowell
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In the storm, like a prophet o'ermaddened, Thou singest and tossest thy branches Thy heart with the terror is gladdened, Thou forebodest the dread avalanches.... In the calm thou o'erstretchest the valleys With thine arms, as if blessings imploring, Like an old king led forth from his palace, When his people to battle are pouring.
James Russell Lowell