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To be young is surely the best, if the most precarious, gift of life.

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
Precarious
Surely
Gift
Youth
Young
Best
Life

More quotes by James Russell Lowell

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A nature wise With finding in itself the types of all, With watching from the dim verge of the time What things to be are visible in the gleams Thrown forward on them from the luminous past, Wise with the history of its own frail heart, With reverence and sorrow, and with love, Broad as the world, for freedom and for man.
James Russell Lowell
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A weed is no more than a flower in disguise, Which is seen through at once, if love give a man eyes.
James Russell Lowell
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Old gold has a civilizing virtue which new gold must grow old to be capable of secreting.
James Russell Lowell
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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.
James Russell Lowell
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Good luck is the willing handmaid of upright, energetic character, and conscientious observance of duty.
James Russell Lowell
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As one lamp lights another, nor grows less,So nobleness enkindleth nobleness.
James Russell Lowell
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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!
James Russell Lowell
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Winds wanders, and dews drip earthward Rains fall, suns rise and set Earth whirls, and all but to prosper A poor little violet.
James Russell Lowell
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A profound common sense is the best genius for statesmanship.
James Russell Lowell
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Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do that day, which must be done, whether you like it or not.
James Russell Lowell
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It is curious for one who studies the action and reaction of national literature on each other, to see the humor of Swift and Sterne and Fielding, after filtering through Richter, reappear in Carlyle with a tinge of Germanism that makes it novel, alien, or even displeasing, as the case may be, to the English mind.
James Russell Lowell
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Folks never understand the folks they hate.
James Russell Lowell
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Certainly it is no shame to a man that he should be as nice about his country as his sweetheart, yet it would not be wise to hold everyone an enemy who could not see her with our own enchanted eyes.
James Russell Lowell
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What a man pays for bread and butter is worth its market value, and no more. What he pays for love's sake is gold indeed, which has a lure for angels' eyes, and rings well upon God's touchstone.
James Russell Lowell
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Love lives on, and hath a power to bless when they who loved are hidden in the grave.
James Russell Lowell
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A man is old when he can pass an apple orchard and not remember the stomachache.
James Russell Lowell
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A sneer is the weapon of the weak. Like other devil's weapons, it is always cunningly ready to our hand, and there is more poison in the handle than in the point.
James Russell Lowell
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Fortune is the rod of the weak, and the staff of the brave.
James Russell Lowell
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Life is constantly weighing us in very sensitive scales, and telling every one of us precisely what his real weight is to the last grain of dust.
James Russell Lowell
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Most men make the voyage of life as if they carried sealed orders which they were not to open till they were fairly in mid-ocean.
James Russell Lowell