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The possession of unlimited power will make a despot of almost any man. There is a possible Nero in the gentlest human creature that walks.

Thomas Bailey Aldrich

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Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Age: 70 †
Born: 1836
Born: November 2
Died: 1907
Died: March 19
Editor
Journalist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Portsmouth
New Hampshire
Men
Creatures
Gentlest
Walks
Despot
Almost
Nero
Possible
Despots
Power
Unlimited
Human
Creature
Humans
Tyranny
Make
Possession

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That was indeed to live -- at one bold swoop to wrest from darkling death the best that death to life can give.
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The man who suspects his own tediousness is yet to be born.
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The young girl in my story is to be as sensitive to praise as a prism is to light. Whenever anybody praises her she breaks into colors.
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The thing one reads and likes, and then forgets, is of no account. The thing that stays, and haunts one, and refuses to be forgotten, that is the sincere thing.
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Imagine all human beings swept off the face of the earth, excepting one man. Imagine this man in some vast city, New York or London. Imagine him on the third or fourth day of his solitude sitting in a house and hearing a ring at the door-bell!
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The ocean moans over dead men's bones.
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Dialect tempered with slang is an admirable medium of communication between persons who have nothing to say and persons who would not care for anything properly said.
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Black Tragedy lets slip her grim disguise and shows you laughing lips and roguish eyes but when, unmasked, gay Comedy appears, how wan her cheeks are, and what heavy tears!
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Come watch with me the shaft of fire that glows in yonder West the fair, frail palaces, The fading Alps and archipelagoes and great cloud continents of sunset-seas.
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What is a day to an immortal soul! A breath, no more.
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My mind lets go a thousand things, Like dates of wars and deaths of kings
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But I, in the chilling twilight stand and wait At the portcullis, at thy castle gate, Longing to see the charmed door of dreams Turn on its noiseless hinges, delicate sleep!
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The fanatic has the courage of his conviction and the intolerance of his courage. He is opposed to the death penalty for murder, but he would willingly have anyone electrocuted who disagreed with him on the subject.
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To keep the heart unwrinkled, to be hopeful, kindly, cheerful, reverent that is to triumph over old age.
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Great orators who are not also great writers become very indistinct shadows to the generations following them. The spell vanishes with the voice.
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Hebe's here, May is here! The air is fresh and sunny And the miser-bees are busy Hoarding golden honey.
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Decoration Day is the most beautiful of our national holidays.... The grim cannon have turned into palm branches, and the shell and shrapnel into peach blossoms.
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When friends are at your hearthside met, Sweet courtesy has done its most If you have made each guest forget That he himself is not the host.
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With the tears a Land hath shed. Their graves should ever be green.
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We weep when we are born, Not when we die!
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