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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.

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
Better
Thing
Life
Originals
Original
Rise
Tradition
Eternal
Takes

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Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us.
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It is by presence of mind in untried emergencies that the native metal of man is tested.
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Truth is quite beyond the reach of satire. There is so brave a simplicity in her that she can no more be made ridiculous than an oak or a pine.
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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.
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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.
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Men! whose boast it is that ye Come of fathers brave and free, If there breathe on earth a slave, Are ye truly free and brave?
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Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof it is temporary expedient, often wise in party politics, almost sure to be unwise in statesmanship.
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The pine is the mother of legends.
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The one thing finished in this hasty world.
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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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While tenderness of feeling and susceptibility to generous emotions are accidents of temperament, goodness is an achievement of the will and a quality of the life.
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How little inventiveness there is in man, Grave copier of copies.
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To educate the intelligence is to expand the horizon of its wants and desires.
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Ah, in this world, where every guiding thread Ends suddenly in the one sure centre, death, The visionary hand of Might-have-been Alone can fill Desire's cup to the brim!
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Better one bite at forty, of truths bitter rind, than the hot wine that gushed from the vintage of twenty.
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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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A word once vulgarized can never be rehabilitated.
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Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust, Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 't is prosperous to be just Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside, Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified.
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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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A great man is made up of qualities that meet or make great occasions.
James Russell Lowell