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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

More quotes by James Russell Lowell

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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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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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Here come the hum the golden bees Underneath full blossomed trees, At once with glowing fruit and flowers crowned.
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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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Men have their intellectual ancestry, and the likeness of some one of them is forever unexpectedly flashing out in the features of a descendant, it may be after a gap of several centuries. In the parliament of the present every man represents a constituency of the past.
James Russell Lowell
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The greatest homage we can pay to truth, is to use it.
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Praise follows truth afar off, and only overtakes her at the grave plausibility clings to her skirts and holds her back till then
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Ye come and go incessant we remain Safe in the hallowed quiets of the past Be reverent, ye who flit and are forgot, Of faith so nobly realized as this.
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Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes, - they were souls that stood alone, While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone, Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine, By one man's plain truth to manhood and to God's supreme design.
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I who still pray at morning and at eve Thrice in my life perhaps have truly prayed, Thrice stirred below conscious self Have felt that perfect disenthrallment which is God.
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Life is the jailer, death the angel sent to draw the unwilling bolts and set us free.
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But life is sweet, though all that makes it sweet. Lessen like sound of friends departing feet And death is beautiful as feet of friend. Coming with welcome at our journey's end.
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I don't believe in principle, but I do in interest.
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Whom the heart of man shuts out, Sometimes the heart of God takes in, And fences them all round about With silence mid the worlds loud din.
James Russell Lowell
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It is not the insurrections of ignorance that are dangerous, but the revolts of the intelligence.
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Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof.
James Russell Lowell
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And what they dare to dream of, date to do.
James Russell Lowell
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Life may be given in many ways, and loyalty to truth be sealed as bravely in the closet as the field.
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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Slow are the steps of freedom, but her feet turn never backward.
James Russell Lowell