Top quotes by James Russell Lowell

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. Votes: 22

Poetry is something to make us wiser and better, by continually revealing those types of beauty and truth, which God has set in all men's souls. Votes: 20

Death is delightful. Death is dawn, The waking from a weary night Of fevers unto truth and light. Votes: 19

Reputation is only a candle, of wavering and uncertain flame, and easily blown out, but it is the light by which the world looks for and finds merit. Votes: 19

There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat. Votes: 19

The mind can weave itself warmly in the cocoon of its own thoughts, and dwell a hermit anywhere. Votes: 18

And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days. Votes: 14

Endurance is the crowning quality, And patience all the passion of great hearts. Votes: 13

Children are God's Apostles, sent forth, day by day, to preach of love, and hope, and peace. Votes: 13

A great man is made up of qualities that meet or make great occasions. Votes: 12

Blessed are they who have nothing to say and who cannot be persuaded to say it. Votes: 12

Fate loves the fearless. Votes: 10

As life runs on, the road grows strange with faces new - and near the end. The milestones into headstones change, Neath every one a friend. Votes: 10

What a sense of security in an old book which time has criticized for us. Votes: 10

The heart forgets its sorrow and ache. Votes: 10

It is by presence of mind in untried emergencies that the native metal of man is tested. Votes: 9

Once to every person and nation come the moment to decide. In the conflict of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side. Votes: 9

They talk about their Pilgrim blood, their birthright high and holy! a mountain-stream that ends in mud thinks is melancholy. Votes: 9

True scholarship consists in knowing not what things exist, but what they mean; it is not memory but judgment. Votes: 8

Incredulity robs us of many pleasures, and gives us nothing in return. Votes: 7

The eye is the notebook of the poet. Votes: 7

The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinions. Votes: 4

On one issue at least, men and women agree; they both distrust women. Votes: 4

Creativity is not the finding of a thing, but the making something out of it after it is found. Votes: 4

Truth, after all, wears a different face to everybody, and it would be too tedious to wait till all were agreed. Votes: 4

A weed is no more than a flower in disguise, Which is seen through at once, if love give a man eyes. Votes: 4

Where one person shapes their life by precept and example, there are a thousand who have shaped it by impulse and circumstances. Votes: 3

Praise follows truth afar off, and only overtakes her at the grave; plausibility clings to her skirts and holds her back till then Votes: 3

When I was a beggarly boy, And lived in a cellar damp, I had not a friend nor a toy, But I had Aladdin's lamp... Votes: 3

Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action. Votes: 2

All the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action. Votes: 0

There is no better ballast for keeping the mind steady on its keel, and saving it from all risk of crankiness, than business. Votes: 0

Communism means barbarism. Votes: 0

In the ocean of baseness, the deeper we get, the easier the sinking. Votes: 0

There is a law of neutralization of forces, which hinders bodies from sinking beyond a certain depth in the sea; but in the ocean of baseness, the deeper we get, the easier the sinking. Votes: 0

Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind. Votes: 0

Silence is sorrow's best food. Votes: 0

Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or the handle. Votes: 0

In creating, the only hard thing is to begin: a grass blade's no easier to make than an oak. Votes: 0

I have always been of the mind that in a democracy manners are the only effective weapons against the bowie-knife. Votes: 0

The dandelions and buttercups gild all the lawn: the drowsy bee stumbles among the clover tops, and summer sweetens all to me. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

The quiet tenderness of Chaucer, where you almost seem to hear the hot tears falling, and the simple choking words sobbed out. Votes: 0

Reading Chaucer is like brushing through the dewy grass at sunrise. Votes: 0

Let us be of good cheer, however, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never come. Votes: 0

O chime of sweet Saint Charity, Peal soon that Easter morn When Christ for all shall risen be, And in all hearts new-born! That Pentecost when utterance clear To all men shall be given, When all shall say My Brother here, And hear My Son in heaven! Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

How little inventiveness there is in man, Grave copier of copies. Votes: 0

God does not weigh criminality in our scales. We have one absolute, with the seal of authority upon it; and with us an ounce is an ounce, and a pound a pound. God's measure is the heart of the offender,--a balance which varies with every one of us, a balance so delicate that a tear cast in the other side may make the weight of error kick the beam. Votes: 0

The right to be a cussed fool Is safe from all devices human, It's common (ez a gin'I rule) To every critter born of woman. Votes: 0

There is nothing so desperately monotonous as the sea, and I no longer wonder at the cruelty of pirates. Votes: 0

If youth be a defect, it is one that we outgrow only too soon. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

The devil loves nothing better than the intolerance of reformers. Votes: 0

Year by year, more and more of the world gets disenchanted. Even the icy privacy of the arctic and antarctic circles is invaded. We have played Jack Horner with our earth, till there is never a plum left in it. Votes: 0

A weed is no more than a flower in disguise. Votes: 0

Fools, when their roof-tree falls, think it doomsday. Votes: 0

It ["The Ancient Mariner"] is marvellous in its mastery over that delightfully fortuitous inconsequence that is the adamantine logic of dreamland. Votes: 0

There is no self-delusion more fatal than that which makes the conscience dreamy with the anodyne of lofty sentiments, while the life is groveling and sensual Votes: 0

Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor. Votes: 0

And the poorest twig on the elm-tree was ridged inch deep with pearl. Votes: 0

Good luck is the willing handmaid of a upright and energetic character, and conscientious observance of duty. Votes: 0

Those who know the truth are not equal to those who love it Confucius All truth is safe and nothing else is safe, but he who keeps back truth, or withholds it from men, from motives of expediency, is either a coward or a criminal. Votes: 0

One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning. Votes: 0

For Humanity sweeps onward: where today the martyr stands, On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands; Far in front the cross stands ready and the crackling fagots burn, While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return To glean up the scattered ashes into History's golden urn. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

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! Votes: 0

Fate loves best such syllables as are sweet and sonorous on the tongue. Votes: 0

Tiny Salmoneus of the air His mimic bolts the firefly threw. Votes: 0

The fireflies o'er the meadow In pulses come and go. Votes: 0

Against the windows the storm comes dashing, Through tattered foliage the hail tears crashing, The blue lightning flashes, The rapid hail clashes... The thunder is rumbling And crashing and crumbling... Votes: 0

Folks never understand the folks they hate. Votes: 0

Fortune is the rod of the weak, and the staff of the brave. Votes: 0

In vain we call old notions fudge, And bend our conscience to our dealing; The Ten Commandments will not budge, And stealing will continue stealing. Votes: 0

Not what we give, but what we share, for the gift without the giver is bare. Votes: 0

The gift without the giver is rare. Votes: 0

AND what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune, And over it softly her warm ear lays; Whether we look, or whether we listen, We hear life murmur, or see it glisten; Votes: 0

The snow had begun in the gloaming, and busily all the night had been heaping field and highway with a silence deep and white. Votes: 0

This child is not mine as the first was; I cannot sing it to rest; I cannot lift it up fatherly, And bless it upon my breast. Yet it lies in my little one's cradle, And sits in my little one's chair, And the light of the heaven she 's gone to Transfigures its golden hair. Votes: 0

My gran'ther's rule was safer 'n 't is to crow: Don't never prophesy - onless ye know. Votes: 0

Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character. Votes: 0

The green grass floweth like a stream Into the oceans's blue. Votes: 0

Metaphor is no argument, though it be sometimes the gunpowder to drive one home, and imbed it in the memory. Votes: 0

True freedom is to share All the chains our brothers wear, And, with heart and hand, to be Earnest to make others free! Votes: 0

The greatest homage we can pay to truth, is to use it. Votes: 0

And blessed are the horny hands of toil. Votes: 0

No man is born into the world whose work Is not born with him. There is always work, And tools to work withal, for those who will; And blessed are the horny hands of toil. Votes: 0

Hush! Still as death, The tempest holds his breath As from a sudden will; The rain stops short, but from the eaves You see it drop, and hear it from the leaves, All is so bodingly still... Votes: 0

The intellect has only one failing, which, to be sure, is a very considerable one. It has no conscience. Votes: 0

No price is set on the lavish summer; June may be had by the poorest comer. Votes: 0

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide. Votes: 0

If we see light at the end of the tunnel, it's the light of the oncoming train. Votes: 0

Be NOBLE! and the nobleness that liesIn other men, sleeping, but never dead,Will rise in majesty to meet thine own. Votes: 0

May is a pious fraud of the almanac. Votes: 0

It is mediocrity which makes laws and sets mantraps and spring-guns in the realm of free song, saying thus far shalt thou go and no further. Votes: 0

A father of the church said that property was theft, many centuries before Proudhon was born. Bourdaloue reaffirmed it. Montesquieu was the inventor of national workshops and of the theory that the state owed every man a living. Nay, was not the church herself the first organized democracy? Votes: 0

A woman's love Is mighty, but a mother's heart is weak, And by its weakness overcomes. Votes: 0

Over all life broods Poesy, like the calm blue sky with its motherly, rebuking face. She is the great reformer, and where the love of her is strong and healthy, wickedness and wrong cannot long prevail. Votes: 0

For there's nothing we read of in torture's inventions, Like a well-meaning dunce, with the best of intentions. Votes: 0

A great part of human suffering has its root in the nature of man, and not in that of his institutions. Votes: 0

Take winter as you find him, and he turns out to be a thoroughly honest fellow; with no nonsense in him, which is a great comfort in the long-run. Votes: 0

For men in earnest have no time to waste In patching fig-leaves for the naked truth. Votes: 0

These pearls of thought in Persian gulfs were bred, Each softly lucent as a rounded moon; The diver Omar plucked them from their bed, Fitzgerald strung them on an English thread. Votes: 0

He who esteems the Virginia reel A bait to draw saints from their spiritual weal, And regards the quadrille as a far greater knavery Than crushing His African children with slavery, Since all who take part in a waltz or cotillon Are mounted for hell on the devil's own pillion, Who, as every true orthodox Christian well knows, Approaches the heart through the door of the toes. Votes: 0

I willingly confess to so great a partiality for trees as tempts me to respect a man in exact proportion to his respect for them. Votes: 0

The secret of force in writing lies not so much in the pedigree of nouns and adjectives and verbs, as in having something that you believe in to say, and making the parts of speech vividly conscious of it. Votes: 0

Get but the truth once uttered, and 'tis like A star new-born that drops into its place And which, once circling in its placid round, Not all the tumult of the earth can shake. Votes: 0

Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way, Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold, First pledge of blithesome May, Which children pluck, and, full of pride uphold. Votes: 0

Sincerity is impossible, unless it pervade the whole being, and the pretence of it saps the very foundation of character. Votes: 0

What men prize most is a privilege, even if it be that of chief mourner at a funeral. Votes: 0

Behind the dim unknown, Standeth God with the shadow, keeping watch above his own. Votes: 0

The New World's sons from England's breast we drew Such milk as bids remember whence we came, Proud of her past wherefrom our future grew, This window we inscribe with Raleigh's fame. Votes: 0

It is only the intellect that can be thoroughly and hideously wicked. It can forget everything in the attainment of its ends. The heart recoils; in its retired some drops of childhood's dew still linger, defying manhood's fiery noon. Votes: 0

Such power there is in clear-eyed self-restraint. Votes: 0

Nature fits all her children with something to do, he who would write and can't write, can surely review. Votes: 0

Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof. Votes: 0

There is a law of neutralization of forces, which hinders bodies from sinking beyond a certain depth in the sea; but in the ocean of baseness, the deeper we get, the easier the sinking Votes: 0

Endurance is the crowning quality, And patience all the passion of great hearts Votes: 0

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 Votes: 0

There is no good in arguing with the inevitable The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat Votes: 0

He who is firmly seated in authority soon learns to think security, and not progress, the highest lesson in statecraft. Votes: 0

Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne. Votes: 0

They are slaves who fear to speak For the fallen and the weak; They are slaves who will not choose Hatred, scoffing, and abuse, Rather than in silence shrink From the truth they needs must think; They are slaves who dare not be In the right with two or three. Votes: 0

So we're all right, an' I, for one, Don't think our cause'll lose in vally By rammin' Scriptur' in our gun, An' gittin' Natur' for an ally. Votes: 0

Sentiment is intellectualized emotion; emotion precipitated, as it were, in pretty crystals by the fancy. Votes: 0

God is not dumb, that he should speak no more; If thou hast wanderings in the wilderness And find'st not Sinai, 'tis thy soul is poor. Votes: 0

No man can produce great things who is not thoroughly sincere in dealing with himself. Votes: 0

A sneer is the weapon of the weak. Votes: 0

The traitor to Humanity is the traitor most accursed; Man is more than Constitutions; better rot beneath the sod, Than be true to Church and State while we are doubly false to God. Votes: 0

Who speaks the truth stabs falsehood to the heart. Votes: 0

Light is the symbol of truth. Votes: 0

The Holy Supper is kept, indeed, In whatso we share with anothers need; Not what we give, but what we share, For the gift without the giver is bare; Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me. Votes: 0

Toward no crimes have men shown themselves so cold- bloodedly cruel as in punishing differences of belief. Votes: 0

All birds during the pairing season become more or less sentimental, and murmur soft nothings in a tone very unlike the grinding-organ repetition and loudness of their habitual song. The crow is very comical as a lover; and to hear him trying to soften his croak to the proper Saint-Preux standard has something the effect of a Mississippi boatman quoting Tennyson. Votes: 0

Who's not sat tense before his own heart's curtain. Votes: 0

Some kind of pace may be got out of the eeriest jade by the near prospect of oats; but the thoroughbred has the spur in his blood. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

The traitor to Humanity is the traitor most accurst. Votes: 0

A stray hair, by its continued irritation, may give more annoyance than a smart blow. Votes: 0

Christ was the first true democrat that ever breathed, as the old dramatist Dekkar said he was the first true gentleman. Votes: 0

Two meanings have our lightest fantasies,- One of the flesh, and of the spirit one. Votes: 0

New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth; They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth. Votes: 0

Time makes ancient good uncouth. Votes: 0

The greater your real strength and power, the quieter it will be exercised. Votes: 0

Winds wanders, and dews drip earthward; Rains fall, suns rise and set; Earth whirls, and all but to prosper A poor little violet. Votes: 0

Violet! sweet violet! Thine eyes are full of tears; Are they wet Even yet With the thought of other years? Votes: 0

To educate the intelligence is to expand the horizon of its wants and desires. Votes: 0

The only faith that wears well and holds its color in all weathers is that which is woven of conviction and set with the sharp mordant of experience. Votes: 0

Democracy is the form of government that gives every man the right to be his own oppressor. Votes: 0

The English Puritans pulled down church and state to rebuild Zion on the ruins, and all the while it was not Zion, but America, they were building. Votes: 0

There are two kinds of weakness, that which breaks and that which bends. Votes: 0

Not failure, but low aim, is crime. Votes: 0

Greatly begin. Though thou have time, but for a line, be that sublime. Not failure, but low aim is crime. Votes: 0

The surest plan to make a man is, think him so. Votes: 0

Not as all other women are Is she that to my soul is dear; Her glorious fancies come from far, Beneath the silver evening star, And yet her heart is ever near. Votes: 0

Each day the world is born anew for him who takes it rightly. Votes: 0

The brain can be easy to buy, but the heart never comes to market. Votes: 0

The only conclusive evidence of a man's sincerity is that he gives himself for a principle. Words, money, all things else, are comparatively easy to give away; but when a man makes a gift of his daily life and practice, it is plain that the truth, whatever it may be, has taken possession of him. Votes: 0

As one lamp lights another, nor grows less,So nobleness enkindleth nobleness. Votes: 0

Though old the thought and oft exprest, Tis his at last who says it best. Votes: 0

All free governments, whatever their name, are in reality governments by public opinion ; and it is on the quality of this public opinion that their prosperity depends. It is, therefore, their first duty to purify the element from which they draw the breath of life. Votes: 0

Freedom is the only law which genius knows. Votes: 0

The flowers or weeds that spring up tomorrow are in the seeds we sow today. The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinions. Votes: 0

The right of individual property is no doubt the very corner-stone of civilization, as hitherto understood; but I am a little impatient of being told that property is entitled to exceptional consideration because it bears all the burdens of the state. It bears those, indeed, which can be most easily borne, but poverty pays with its person the chief expenses of war, pestilence, and famine. Votes: 0

The better part of every man's education is that which he gives himself. Votes: 0

Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this, that you are dreadfully like other people. Votes: 0

There is something magnificent in having a country to love. Votes: 0

Endurance is the crowning quality... Votes: 0

Truth, after all, wears a different face to everybody, and it would be too tedious to wait till all were agreed. She is said to lie at the bottom of a well, for the very reason, perhaps, that whoever looks down in search of her sees his own image at the bottom, and is persuaded not only that he has seen the goddess, but that she is far better looking than he had imagined. Votes: 0

Talent is that which is in a man's power; genius is that in whose power a man is. Votes: 0

And I honor the man who is willing to sink half his present repute for the freedom to think, and, when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak, Will risk t' other half for the freedom to speak. Votes: 0

Wealth may be an excellent thing, for it means power, and it means leisure, it means liberty. Votes: 0

In the earliest ages science was poetry, as in the latter poetry has become science. Votes: 0

Reading enables us to see with the keenest eyes, to hear with the finest ears, and listen to the sweetest voices of all time. Votes: 0

His heart kep' goin' pity-pat, But hern went pity-Zekle. Votes: 0

We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage. Votes: 0

To win the secret of a weed's plain heart. Votes: 0

It is only by instigation of the wrongs of men that what we call the rights of men become turbulent and dangerous. Votes: 0

Large charity doth never soil, but only whitens soft white hands. Votes: 0

All that hath been majestical In life or death, since time began, Is native in the simple heart of all, The angel heat of man. Votes: 0

Democracy is nothing more than an experiment in government, more likely to succeed in a new soil, but likely to be tried in all soils, which must stand or fall on its own merits as others have done before it. For there is no trick of perpetual motion in politics any more than in mechanics. Votes: 0

A friendship counting nearly forty years is the finest kind of shade-tree I know. Votes: 0

'Tis sorrow builds the shining ladder up, Whose golden rounds are our calamities, Whereon our firm feet planting, nearer God The spirit climbs, and hath its eyes unsealed. True it is that Death's face seems stern and cold When he is sent to summon those we love; But all God's angels come to us disguised; Sorrow and sickness, poverty and death, One after another, lift their frowning masks, And we behold the Seraph's face beneath, All radiant with the Glory and the calm Of having looked upon the front of God. Votes: 0

Great truths are portions of the soul of man; Great souls are portions of eternity. Votes: 0

Sorrow is the great idealizer. Votes: 0

The idol is the measure of the worshipper. Votes: 0

Like streams that keep a summer mind Snow-hid in Jenooary. Votes: 0

The one thing finished in this hasty world. Votes: 0

Some day the soft Ideal that we wooed confronts us fiercely, foe-beset, pursued, and cries reproachful: Was it then my praise, and not myself was loved? Prove now thy truth; I claim of thee the promise of thy youth. Votes: 0

To me it seems not unreasonable to find a re-enforcement of optimism, a renewal of courage and hope, in the modern theory that man has mounted to what he is from the lowest step of potentiality, through toilsome grades of ever-expanding existence, even thought it have been by a spiral stairway, mainly dark or dusty, with loop-holes at long intervals only, and these granting but a narrow and one-sided view. Votes: 0

Things always seem fairer when we look back at them, and it is out of that inaccessible tower of the past that Longing leans and beckons. Votes: 0

No man is born into the world whose work is not born with him. There is always work, and tools to work with, for those who will, and blessed are the horny hands of toil. The busy world shoves angrily aside the man who stands with arms akimbo until occasion tells him what to do; and he who waits to have his task marked out shall die and leave his errand unfulfilled. Votes: 0

[B]ut in literature, it should be remembered, a thing always becomes his at last who says it best, and thus makes it his own. Votes: 0

From lower to the higher next, Not to the top, is Nature's text; And embryo Good, to reach full stature, Absorbs the Evil in its nature. Votes: 0

My soul is not a palace of the past... Votes: 0

Over our manhood bend the skies; Against our fallen and traitor lives The great winds utter prophecies; With our faint hearts the mountain strives, Its arms outstretched, the druid wood Waits with its benedicite And to our age’s drowsy blood Still shouts the inspiring sea. Votes: 0

If I were asked what book is better than a cheap book, I should answer that there is one book better than a cheap book,-and that is a book honestly come by. Votes: 0

Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us; The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in, The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us, We bargain for the graves we lie in; Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold... 'T is heaven alone that is given away, 'T is only God may be had for the asking; There is no price set on the lavish summer, And June may be had by the poorest comer. Votes: 0

There is no bore we dread being left alone with so much as our own minds. Votes: 0

Laborin' man an' laborin' woman Hev one glory an' one shame; Ev'y thin' thet' s done inhuman Injers all on 'em the same. Votes: 0

Here come the hum the golden bees Underneath full blossomed trees, At once with glowing fruit and flowers crowned. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

Earth's noblest thing,-a woman perfected. Votes: 0

Nature, they say, doth dote, And cannot make a man Save on some worn-out plan, Repeating us by rote. Votes: 0

The time is ripe, and rotten-ripe, for change; Then let it come: I have no dread of what Is called for by the instinct of mankind. Nor think I that God's world would fall apart Because we tear a parchment more or less. Truth is eternal, but her effluence, With endless change, is fitted to the hour; Her mirror is turned forward, to reflect The promise of the future, not the past. I do not fear to follow out the truth... Votes: 0

Ez fer war, I call it murder,- There you hev it plain an' flat; I don't want to go no furder Than my Testyment fer that. . . . . . An' you 've gut to git up airly Ef you want to take in God. Votes: 0

The time is ripe, and rotten-ripe, for change... [Truth's] mirror is turned forward, to reflect The promise of the future, not the past... Votes: 0

The pale and quiet moon Makes her calm forehead bare, And the last fragments of the storm, Like shattered rigging from a fight at sea, Silent and few, are drifting over me. Votes: 0

Again, now, now, again Plashes the rain in heavy gouts, The crinkled lightning Seems ever brightening... And loud and long Again the thunder shouts His battle-song,"” One quivering flash, One wildering crash, Followed by silence dead and dull, As if the cloud, let go, Leapt bodily below To whelm the earth in one mad overthrow, And then a total lull... Votes: 0

Borrowed garments never keep one warm. Votes: 0

There comes Emerson first, whose rich words, every one, Are like gold nails in temples to hang trophies on. Votes: 0

Now on the hills I hear the thunder mutter... Nearer and nearer rolls the thunder-clap,"” You can hear the quick heart of the tempest beat.... Look! look! that livid flash! And instantly follows the rattling thunder, As if some cloud-crag, split asunder, Fell, splintering with a ruinous crash, On the Earth, which crouches in silence under; And now a solid gray wall of rain Shuts off the landscape, mile by mile... Votes: 0

Suddenly all the sky is hid As with the shutting of a lid, One by one great drops are falling Doubtful and slow, Down the pane they are crookedly crawling, And the wind breathes low; Slowly the circles widen on the river, Widen and mingle, one and all; Here and there the slenderer flowers shiver, Struck by an icy rain-drop's fall. Votes: 0

...Long, sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed trees Bending to counterfeit a breeze... Votes: 0

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... Votes: 0

Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it, We are happy now because God so wills it; No matter how barren the past may have been, 'T is enough for us now that the leaves are green; We sit in the warm shade and feel right well How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell... The breeze comes whispering in our ear, That dandelions are blossoming near... Every thing is upward striving; 'T is as easy now for the heart to be true As for grass to be green or skies to be blue, "” 'T is the natural way of living... Votes: 0

The ultimate result of protecting fools from their folly is to fill the planet full of fools. Votes: 0

Life is the jailer, death the angel sent to draw the unwilling bolts and set us free. Votes: 0

O reputation! dearer far than life. Votes: 0

Imagination, where it is truly creative, is a faculty, and not a quality; it looks before and after, it gives the form that makes all the parts work together harmoniously toward a given end, its seat is in the higher reason, and it is efficient only as a servant of the will. Imagination, as it is too often misunderstood, is mere fantasy, the image-making power, common to all who have the gift of dreams. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

Love lives on, and hath a power to bless when they who loved are hidden in the grave. Votes: 0

The path of nature is, indeed, a narrow one, and it is only the immortals that seek it, and, when they find it, do not find themselves cramped therein. Votes: 0

Ef you want peace, the thing you've gut to du Is jes' to show you're up to fightin', tu. Votes: 0

But civlyzation doos git forrid Sometimes upon a powder-cart. Votes: 0

We cannot but think there is something like a fallacy in Mr. Buckle's theory that the advance of mankind is necessarily in the direction of science, and not in that of morals. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

Scepticism commonly takes up the room left by defect of imagination, and is the very quality of mind most likely to seek for sensual proof of supersensual things. If one came from the dead it could not believe; and yet it longs for such a witness, and will put up with a very dubious one. Votes: 0

Making one object, in outward or inward nature, more holy to a single heart is reward enough for a life; for the more sympathies we gain or awaken for what is beautiful, by so much deeper will be our sympathy for that which is most beautiful,--the human soul! Votes: 0

Practical application is the only mordant which will set things in the memory. Study without it is gymnastics, and not work, which alone will get intellectual bread. Votes: 0

The very gnarliest and hardest of hearts has some musical strings in it; but they are tuned differently in every one of us. Votes: 0

There is no work of genius which has not been the delight of mankind, no word of genius to which the human heart and soul have not sooner or later responded. Votes: 0

The riches of scholarship, the benignities of literature, defy fortune and outlive calamity. They are beyond the reach of thief or moth or rust. As they cannot be inherited, so they cannot, be alienated. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

One of the things particularly admirable in the public utterances of President Lincoln is a certain tone of familiar dignity, which, while it is perhaps the most difficult attainment of mere style, is also no doubtful indication of personal character. There must be something essentially noble in an elective ruler who can descend to the level of confidential ease without forfeiting respect, something very manly in one who can break through the etiquette of his conventional rank and trust himself to the reason and intelligence of those who have elected him. Votes: 0

Tis easy now for the heart to be true As for grass to be green or skies to be blue-- 'Tis the natural way of living. Votes: 0

A profound common sense is the best genius for statesmanship. Votes: 0

Keats longed for fame, but longed above all to deserve it. Votes: 0

The course of a great statesman resembles that of navigable rivers, avoiding immovable obstacles with noble bends of concession, seeking the broad levels of opinion on which men soonest settle and longest dwell, following and marking the almost imperceptible slopes of national tendency, yet always aiming at direct advances, always recruited from sources nearer heaven, and sometimes bursting open paths of progress and fruitful human commerce through what seem the eternal barriers of both. Votes: 0

With every anguish of our earthly part The spirit's sight grows clearer. Votes: 0

Tis as easy to be heroes as to sit the idle slaves. Votes: 0

Analysis is carried into everything. Even Deity is subjected to chemical tests. Votes: 0

A marciful Providunce fashioned us holler O' purpose thet we might our principles swaller. Votes: 0

Human nature has a much greater genius for sameness than for originality. Votes: 0

They have rights who dare maintain them. Votes: 0

Slow are the steps of freedom, but her feet turn never backward. Votes: 0

The time is ripe, and rotten-ripe, for change. Votes: 0

Literature, properly so called, draws its sap from the deep soil of human nature's common and everlasting sympathies, the gathered leaf-mound of countless generations, and not from any top dressing capriciously scattered over the surface. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

New conditions of life will stimulate thought and give new forms to its expression. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

Let us be thankful that there is no court by which we can be excluded from our share in the inheritance of the great poets of all ages and countries, to which our simple humanity entitles us. Votes: 0

He's true to God who's true to man. Votes: 0

You've gut to git up airly Ef you want to take in God. Votes: 0

It seems to me that the bane of our country is a profession of faith either with no basis of real belief, or with no proper examination of the grounds on which the creed is supposed to rest. Votes: 0

Where Church and State are habitually associated, it is natural that minds, even of a high order, should unconsciously come to regard religion as only a subtler mode of police. Votes: 0

Attention is the stuff that memory is made of, and memory is accumulated genius. Votes: 0

Darkness is strong, and so is Sin, But surely God endures forever! Votes: 0

Most long lives resemble those threads of gossamer, the nearest approach to nothing unmeaningly prolonged, scarce visible pathways of some worm from his cradle to his grave. Votes: 0

Nature, they say, doth dote, And cannot make a man Save on some worn-out plan Repeating us by rote: For him her Old World moulds aside she threw And, choosing sweet clay from the breast Of the unexhausted West, With stuff untainted shaped a hero new. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

The ash her purple drops forgivingly And sadly, breaking not the general hush; The maple swamps glow like a sunset sea, Each leaf a ripple with its separate flush; All round the wood's edge creeps the skirting blaze, Ere the rain falls, the cautious farmer burns his brush. Votes: 0

A ginooine statesman should be on his guard, if he must hev beliefs, not to b'lieve 'em too hard. Votes: 0

It is not a great Xerxes army of words, but a compact Greek ten thousand that march safely down to posterity. Votes: 0

God'll send the bill to you. Votes: 0

O thou, whose days are yet all spring, Faith, blighted once, is past retrieving; Experience is a dumb, dead thing; The victory's in believing. Votes: 0

No sincere desire of doing good need make an enemy of a single human being; that philanthropy has surely a flaw in it which cannot sympathize with the oppressor equally as with the oppressed. Votes: 0

Never did Poesy appear So full of heaven to me, as when I saw how it would pierce through pride and fear To the lives of coarsest men. Votes: 0

It is curious how tyrannical the habit of reading is, and what shifts we make to escape thinking. There is no bore we dread being left alone with so much as our own minds. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

The pine is the mother of legends. Votes: 0

Stern men with empires in their brains. Votes: 0

The sentimentalist does not think of what he does so much as of what the world will think of what he does. Votes: 0

Not but wut abstract war is horrid, I sign to thet with all my heart, But civilysation doos git forrid Sometimes, upon a powder-cart. Votes: 0

It may be conjectured that it is cheaper in the long run to lift men up than to hold them down, and that the ballot in their hands is less dangerous to society than a sense of wrong is in their heads. Votes: 0

There is something solid and doughty in the man that can rise from defeat, the stuff of which victories are made in due time, when we are able to choose our position better, and the sun is at our back. Votes: 0

And what they dare to dream of, date to do. Votes: 0

Life may be given in many ways, and loyalty to truth be sealed as bravely in the closet as the field. Votes: 0

It is beginning to be doubtful whether Parliament and Congress sit in Westminster and Washington, or in the editorial rooms of the leading journals,--so thoroughly is everything debated before the authorized and responsible debaters get on their legs. Votes: 0

Time is, after all, the greatest of poets; and the sons of Memory stand a better chance of being the heirs of Fame. Votes: 0

There is only one thing better than tradition and that is the original and eternal life out of which all tradition takes its rise. Votes: 0

With every step of the recent traveler our inheritance of the wonderful is diminished. Those beautiful pictured notes of the possible are redeemed at a ruinous discount in the hard coin of the actual. Votes: 0

Truth always has a bewitching savor of newness in it, and novelty at the first taste recalls that original sweetness to the tongue; but alas for him who would make the one a substitute for the other. Votes: 0

Truth only needs to be for once spoken out; and there's such music in her, such strange rhythm, as makes men's memories her joyous slaves. Votes: 0

God is the only being who has time enough; but a prudent man, who knows how to seize occasion, can commonly make a shift to find as much as he needs. Votes: 0

Through aisles of long-drawn centuries my spirit walks in thought. Votes: 0

The material of thought re-acts upon the thought itself. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

It is right precious to behold The first long surf of climbing light Flood all the thirsty east with gold. Votes: 0

But better far it is to speak One simple word, which now and then Shall waken their free nature in the weak And friendless sons of men. Votes: 0

Taste is the next gift to genius. Votes: 0

I would hardly change the sorrowful words of the poets for their glad ones. Tears dampen the strings of the lyre, but they grow the tensor for it, and ring even the clearer and more ravishingly. Votes: 0

Men's thoughts and opinions are in a great degree vassals of him who invents a new phrase or re-applies an old epithet. The thought or feeling a thousand times repeated becomes his at last who utters it best. Votes: 0

The purely Great Whose soul no siren passion could unsphere, Thou nameless, now a power and mixed with fate. Votes: 0

Old gold has a civilizing virtue which new gold must grow old to be capable of secreting. Votes: 0

Better one bite at forty, of truths bitter rind, than the hot wine that gushed from the vintage of twenty. Votes: 0

That pernicious sentiment, "Our country, right or wrong." Votes: 0

If God made poets for anything, it was to keep alive the traditions of the pure, the holy, and the beautiful. Votes: 0

No mud can soil us but the mud we throw. Votes: 0

Not a change for the better in our human housekeeping has ever taken place that wise and good men have not opposed it-have not prophesied that the world would wake up to find its throat cut in consequence. Votes: 0

Our American republic will endure only as long as the ideas of the men who founded it continue dominant. Votes: 0

Whenever you have the kind of market that is taking shape now - a wildly volatile one with big pricing discrepancies - it plays right into the hands of managers who are very focused on research and stock picking. Votes: 0

Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us. Votes: 0

No man, I suspect, ever lived long in the country without being bitten by these meteorological ambitions. He likes to be hotter and colder, to have been more deeply snowed up, to have more trees and larger blown down than his neighbors. Votes: 0

If one waits for the right time to come before writing, the right time never comes. Votes: 0

Many make the household but only one the home. Votes: 0

The stiff rails were softened to swan's-down, and still fluttered down the snow. Votes: 0

Not suffering, but faint heart, is worst of woes. Votes: 0

The nunneries of silent nooks, the murmured longing of the wood. Votes: 0

A word once vulgarized can never be rehabilitated. Votes: 0

To be young is surely the best, if the most precarious, gift of life. Votes: 0

Democracy is that form of society, no matter what its political classification, in which every man has a chance and knows that he has it. Votes: 0

The first lesson of life is to burn our own smoke; that is, not to inflict on outsiders our personal sorrows and petty morbidness, not to keep thinking of ourselves as exceptional cases. Votes: 0

To make the common marvelous is the test of genius. Votes: 0

Console yourself, dear man and brother; whatever you may be sure of, be sure at least of this, that you are dreadfully like other people. Human nature has a much greater genius for sameness than for originality. Votes: 0

Moral supremacy is the only one that leaves monuments, and not ruins, behind it. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

Piety is indifferent whether she enters at the eye or at the ear. There is none of the senses at which she does not knock one day or other. The Puritans forgot this, and thrust Beauty out of the meeting-house and slammed the door in her face. Votes: 0

History is clarified experience. Votes: 0

The true historical genius, to our thinking, is that which can see the nobler meaning of events that are near him, as the true poet is he who detects the divine in the casual; and we somewhat suspect the depth of his insight into the past who cannot recognize the godlike of to-day under that disguise in which it always visits us. Votes: 0

If the devil take a less hateful shape to us than to our fathers, he is as busy with us as with them. Votes: 0

The opening of the first grammar school was the opening of the first trench against monopoly in Church and State. Votes: 0

Enthusiasm begets enthusiasm, eloquence produces conviction for the moment; but it is only by truth to Nature and the everlasting institutions of mankind that those abiding influences are won that enlarge from generation to generation. Votes: 0

Faith in God, faith in man, faith in work: this is the short formula in which we may sum up the teachings of the founders of New England,--a creed ample enough for this life and the next. Votes: 0

Fastidiousness is only another word for egotism; and all men who know not where to look for truth save in the narrow well of self will find their own image at the bottom, and mistake it for what they are seeking. Votes: 0

There are two kinds of genius. The first and highest may be said to speak out of the eternal to the present, and must compel its age to understand it; the second understands its age, and tells it what it wishes to be told. Votes: 0

It is singular how impatient men are with overpraise of others, how patient of overpraise of themselves; and yet the one does them no injury, while the other may be their ruin. Votes: 0

In the parliament of the present every man represents a constituency of the past. Votes: 0

It is curious how tyrannical the habit of reasoning is. Votes: 0

It is not without reason that fame is awarded only after death. The cloud-dust of notoriety which follows and envelops the men who drive with the wind bewilders contemporary judgment. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

Who is it needs such flawless shafts as fate? What archer of his arrows is so choice, or hits the white so surely? Votes: 0

Be He nowhere else, God is in all that liberates and lifts, in all that humbles, sweetens, and consoles. Votes: 0

God's livery is a very plain one; but its wearers have good reason to be content. If it have not so much gold-lace about it as Satan's, it keeps out foul weather better, and is besides a great deal cheaper. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

Many-sidedness of culture makes our vision clearer and keener in particulars. Votes: 0

To fail at all is to fail utterly. Votes: 0

Evil is a far more cunning and persevering propagandist than good, for it has no inward strength, and is driven to seek countenance and sympathy. Votes: 0

Have you ever rightly considered what the mere ability to read means? That it is the key which admits us to the whole world of thought and fancy and imagination? to the company of saint and sage, of the wisest and the wittiest at their wisest and wittiest moment? That it enables us to see with the keenest eyes, hear with the finest ears, and listen to the sweetest voices of all time? More than that, it annihilates time and space for us. Votes: 0

Most religion-mongers have bated their paradises with a bit of toasted cheese. They have tempted the body with large promises of possessions in their transmortal El Dorado. Sancho Panza will not quit his chimney-corner, but under promise of imaginary islands to govern. Votes: 0

There is surely room for yet another schoolmaster when a score of seers advertise themselves in Boston newspapers. Votes: 0

Comparative criticism teaches us that moral and aesthetic defects are more nearly related than is commonly supposed. Votes: 0

The realm of death seems an enemy's country to most men, on whose shores they are loathly driven by stress of weather; to the wise man it is the desired port where he moors his bark gladly, as in some quiet haven of the Fortunate Isles; it is the golden west into which his sun sinks, and, sinking, casts back a glory upon the leaden cloud-tack which had darkly besieged his day. Votes: 0

We look at death through the cheap-glazed windows of the flesh, and believe him the monster which the flawed and cracked glass represents him. Votes: 0

Among the lessons taught by the French revolution, there is none sadder or more striking than this--that you may make everything else out of the passions of men except a political system that will work, and that there is nothing so pitilessly and unconsciously cruel as sincerity formulated into dogma. Votes: 0

Pride of origin, whether high or low, springs from the same principle in human nature; one is but the positive, the other the negative, pole of a single weakness. Votes: 0

True love is but a humble, low born thing, And hath its food served up in earthenware; It is a thing to walk with, hand in hand, Through the every-dayness of this workday world. Votes: 0

Beauty hath no true glass, except it be in the sweet privacy of loving eyes. Votes: 0

Wise skepticism is the first attribute of a good critic. Votes: 0

Old events have modern meanings; only that survives of past history which finds kindred in all hearts and lives. Votes: 0

All thoughts that mold the age begin deep down within the primitive soul. Votes: 0

It is the rooted instinct in men to admire what is better and more beautiful than themselves. Votes: 0

All thoughtful men are solitary and original in themselves. Votes: 0

Granting our wish is one of Fate's saddest jokes. Votes: 0

To put more faith in lies and hate than truth and love, is the true atheism. Votes: 0

Pride and weakness are Siamese twins. Votes: 0

He mastered whatever was not worth the knowing. Votes: 0

Good heavens, of what un costly material is our earthly happiness composed... if we only knew it. What incomes have we not had from a flower, and how unfailing are the dividends of the seasons. Votes: 0

That cause is strong which has, not a multitude, but one strong man behind it. Votes: 0

A man is old when he can pass an apple orchard and not remember the stomachache. Votes: 0

Evil springs up, and flowers, and bears no seed, And feeds the green earth with its swift decay, Leaving it richer for the growth of truth. Votes: 0

That best academy, a mother's knee. Votes: 0

It is not the insurrections of ignorance that are dangerous, but the revolts of the intelligence. Votes: 0

Idleness induces caprice. Votes: 0

It was in making education not only common to all, but in some sense compulsory on all, that the destiny of the free republics of America was practically settled. Votes: 0

Better to me the poor mans crust, Better the blessing of the poor, Though I turn me empty from his door; That is no true alms which the hand can hold; He gives nothing but worthless gold Who gives from a sense of duty; But he who gives a slender mite, And gives to that which is out of sight, That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty Which runs through all and doth all unite, - The hand cannot clasp the whole of his alms, The heart outstretches its eager palms, For a god goes with it and makes it store To the soul that was starving in darkness before. Votes: 0

I don't believe in princerple, But oh I du in interest. Votes: 0

The wisest man could ask no more of fate Than to be simple, modest, manly, true, Safe from the many, honored by the few; Nothing to court in Church, or World, or State, But inwardly in secret to be great. Votes: 0

They enslave their children's children who make compromise with sin. Votes: 0

Safe in the hallowed quiets of the past. Votes: 0

Puritanism, believing itself quick with the seed of religious liberty, laid, without knowing it, the egg of democracy. Votes: 0

They are slaves who fear to speak, for the fallen and the weak. Votes: 0

The true ideal is not opposed to the real but lies in it; and blessed are the eyes that find it. Votes: 0

New occasions teach new duties. Votes: 0

He gives only the worthless gold who gives from a sense of duty. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

In all literary history there is no such figure as Dante, no such homogeneousness of life and works, such loyalty to ideas, such sublime irrecognition of the unessential. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

Life seems a jest of Fate's contriving. Votes: 0

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how. Votes: 0

Every person born into this world their work is born with them. Votes: 0

An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run. Votes: 0

In life's small things be resolute and great To keep thy muscle trained; Know'st thou when Fate Thy measure takes, or when she'll say to thee, "I find thee worthy; do this deed for me?" Votes: 0

One day with life and heart Is more than time enough to find a world. Votes: 0

All God's angels come to us disguised. Votes: 0

The story of any one man's real experience finds its startling parallel in that of every one of us. Votes: 0

He who keeps his faith only, cannot be discrowned. Votes: 0

Freedom needs all her poets; it is they Who give her aspirations wings, And to the wiser law of music sway Her wild imaginings. Votes: 0

Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, himself, his hungering neighbor and me. Votes: 0

The nurse of full-grown souls is solitude. Votes: 0

A wise man travels to discover himself. Votes: 0

At the devil's booth are all things sold. Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold. Votes: 0

It is the privilege of genius that life never grows common place, as it does for the rest of us. Votes: 0

Truly there is a tide in the affairs of men; but there is no gulf-stream setting forever in one direction. Votes: 0

Wut 's words to them whose faith an' truth On war's red techstone rang true metal; Who ventered life an' love an' youth For the gret prize o' death in battle? Votes: 0

For only by unlearning Wisdom comes. Votes: 0

The thing we long for, that we are For one transcendent moment. Votes: 0

The future works out great men's destinies; The present is enough for common souls, Who, never looking forward, are indeed Mere clay wherein the footprints of their age Are petrified forever. Votes: 0

Humbleness is always grace; always dignity Votes: 0

Fanaticism, or, to call it by its milder name, enthusiasm, is only powerful and active so long as it is aggressive. Establish it firmly in power, and it becomes conservatism, whether it will or no. Votes: 0

This goin' ware glory waits ye haint one agreeable feetur. Votes: 0

And but two ways are offered to our will, Toil with rare triumph, ease with safe disgrace, The problem still for us and all of human race. Votes: 0

Who knows whither the clouds have fled? In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake; And the eyes forget the tears they have shed, The heart forgets its sorrow and ache. Votes: 0

This imputation of inconsistency is one to which every sound politician and every honest thinker must sooner or later subject himself. The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinion. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

O visionary world, condition strange, Where naught abiding is but only change. Votes: 0

A beggar through the world am I, From place to place I wander by. Fill up my pilgrim's scrip for me, For Christ's sweet sake and charity. Votes: 0

It is good To lengthen to the last a sunny mood. Votes: 0

What means this glory round our feet, The Magi mused, "more bright than morn!" And voices chanted clear and sweet, "To-day the Prince of Peace is born. Votes: 0

In general those who nothing have to say Contrive to spend the longest time in doing it. Votes: 0

Of my merit On that pint you yourself may jedge: All is, I never drink no sperit, Nor I haint never signed no pledge. Votes: 0

One learns more metaphysics from a single temptation than from all the philosophers. Votes: 0

Tyranny is always weakness Votes: 0

Stories now, to suit a public taste, must be half epigram, half pleasant vice. Votes: 0

The Don Quixote of one generation may live to hear himself called the savior of society by the next. Votes: 0

Our seasons have no fixed returns, Without our will they come and go; At noon our sudden summer burns, Ere sunset all is snow. Votes: 0

May is a pious fraud of the almanac A ghastly parody of real Spring Shaped out of snow and breathed with eastern wind. Votes: 0

The pressure of public opinion is like the pressure of the atmosphere; you can't see it - but all the same, it is sixteen pounds to the square inch. Votes: 0

All share in the government of the world was denied for centuries to perhaps the ablest, certainly the most tenacious race that had ever lived in it Votes: 0

In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal claim. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

An angel stood and met my gaze, Through the low doorway of my tent; The tent is struck, the vision stays; I only know she came and went. Votes: 0

Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave. Votes: 0

I love her with a love as still As a broad river's peaceful might, Which by high tower and lowly mill, Goes wandering at its own will, And yet does ever flow aright. Votes: 0

He gives us the very quintessence of perception,-the clearly crystalized precipitation of all that is most precious in the ferment of impression after the impertinent and obtrusive particulars have evaporated from the memory. Votes: 0

Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it; We are happy now because God wills it. Votes: 0

Before Man made us citizens, great Nature made us men. Votes: 0

The soil out of which such men as he are made is good to be born on, good to live on, good to die for and to be buried in. Votes: 0

A poet must need be before his own age, to be even with posterity Votes: 0

Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide, In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side; Some great cause, some great decision, offering each the bloom or blight, And the choice goes by forever, 'twixt that darkness and that light. Votes: 0

Here was a type of the true elder race, And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face. Votes: 0

Aspiration sees only one side of every question; possession many. Votes: 0

Heaven is neither here nor there to me. Everywhere and nowhere. Just not in between, But I believe in Heaven. Votes: 0

Earth's biggest country 's gut her soul, An' risen up earth's greatest nation. Votes: 0

Not a deed would he do, Not a word would he utter, Till he's weighed its relation To plain bread and butter. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

It may be glorious to write Thoughts that shall glad the two or three High souls, like those far stars that come in sight Once in a century. Votes: 0

Whoever can endure unmixed delight, whoever can tolerate music and painting and poetry all in one, whoever wishes to be rid of thought and to let the busy anvils of the brain be silent for a time, let him read in the "Faery Queen." Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

'T is heaven alone that is given away; 'T is only God may be had for the asking. Votes: 0

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! Votes: 0

Ah, men do not know how much strength is in poise, That he goes the farthest who goes far enough. Votes: 0

Those who love are but one step from heaven. Votes: 0

That love for one, from which there doth not spring Wide love for all, is but a worthless thing. Votes: 0

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? Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

Worshippers of light ancestral make the present light a crime. Votes: 0

To genius life never grows commonplace. Votes: 0

What men call luck Is the prerogative of valiant souls, The fealty life pays its rightful kings. Votes: 0

Did man e'er live Saw priest or woman yet forgive? Votes: 0

Tyrants are but the spawn of Ignorance, Begotten by the slaves they trample on. Votes: 0

And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light. Votes: 0

The victory's in believing. Votes: 0

I don't believe in principle, but I do in interest. Votes: 0

How I do love the earth. I feel it thrill under my feet. I feel somehow as if it were conscious of my love, as if something passed into my dancing blood from it. Votes: 0

In the scale of the destinies, brawn will never weigh so mach as brain. Votes: 0

It is the vain endeavor to make ourselves what we are not that has strewn history with so many broken purposes and lives left in the rough. Votes: 0

To have greatly dreamed precludes low ends. Votes: 0

The discontent with the existing order of things pervaded the atmosphere, wherever the conditions were favorable, long before Columbus, seeking the back door of Asia, found himself knocking at the front door of America. Votes: 0