Background Image

...

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.

-James Russell Lowell

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Enthusiasm Begets Enthusiasm, Eloquence

James Russell Lowell

...

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.

Views: 9

Topic

More From James Russell Lowell

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.

Human Nature Has A Much Greater Genius For Sameness Than For Originality.

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.

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.

A Wise Skepticism Is The First Attribute Of A Good Critic.

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.

The Devil Loves Nothing Better Than The Intolerance Of Reformers.

At The Devil's Booth Are All Things Sold. Each Ounce Of Dross Costs Its Ounce Of Gold.

Tyrants Are But The Spawn Of Ignorance, Begotten By The Slaves They Trample On.

The Mind Can Weave Itself Warmly In The Cocoon Of Its Own Thoughts, And Dwell A Hermit Anywhere.

For Men In Earnest Have No Time To Waste In Patching Fig-leaves For The Naked Truth.

New Conditions Of Life Will Stimulate Thought And Give New Forms To Its Expression.

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.

The Heart Forgets Its Sorrow And Ache.

Through Aisles Of Long-drawn Centuries My Spirit Walks In Thought.

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.

Before Man Made Us Citizens, Great Nature Made Us Men.

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.

God'll Send The Bill To You.

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.

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.

A Profound Common Sense Is The Best Genius For Statesmanship.

To Be Young Is Surely The Best, If The Most Precarious, Gift Of Life.

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.

If We See Light At The End Of The Tunnel, It's The Light Of The Oncoming Train.

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?

To Have Greatly Dreamed Precludes Low Ends.

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.

In The Ocean Of Baseness, The Deeper We Get, The Easier The Sinking.

It Is The Rooted Instinct In Men To Admire What Is Better And More Beautiful Than Themselves.

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.

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.

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.

The Brain Can Be Easy To Buy, But The Heart Never Comes To Market.

Whatever You May Be Sure Of, Be Sure Of This, That You Are Dreadfully Like Other People.

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.

Wealth May Be An Excellent Thing, For It Means Power, And It Means Leisure, It Means Liberty.

Humbleness Is Always Grace; Always Dignity

The Greatest Homage We Can Pay To Truth, Is To Use It.

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.

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.

Christ Was The First True Democrat That Ever Breathed, As The Old Dramatist Dekkar Said He Was The First True Gentleman.

Solitude Is As Needful To The Imagination As Society Is Wholesome For The Character.

One Day With Life And Heart Is More Than Time Enough To Find A World.

The Ultimate Result Of Protecting Fools From Their Folly Is To Fill The Planet Full Of Fools.

Time Is, After All, The Greatest Of Poets; And The Sons Of Memory Stand A Better Chance Of Being The Heirs Of Fame.

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.

Idleness Induces Caprice.

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.

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.

Great Truths Are Portions Of The Soul Of Man; Great Souls Are Portions Of Eternity.

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.

Taste Is The Next Gift To Genius.

The Gift Without The Giver Is Rare.

One Thorn Of Experience Is Worth A Whole Wilderness Of Warning.

Keats Longed For Fame, But Longed Above All To Deserve It.

For There's Nothing We Read Of In Torture's Inventions, Like A Well-meaning Dunce, With The Best Of Intentions.

In The Earliest Ages Science Was Poetry, As In The Later Poetry Has Become Science.

Not Failure, But Low Aim, Is Crime.

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.

Once To Every Person And Nation Come The Moment To Decide. In The Conflict Of Truth With Falsehood, For The Good Or Evil Side.

I Have Always Been Of The Mind That In A Democracy Manners Are The Only Effective Weapons Against The Bowie-knife.

The Story Of Any One Man's Real Experience Finds Its Startling Parallel In That Of Every One Of Us.

Behind The Dim Unknown, Standeth God With The Shadow, Keeping Watch Above His Own.

Breaking Silence

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.

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.

Borrowed Garments Never Keep One Warm.

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.

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.

To Educate The Intelligence Is To Expand The Horizon Of Its Wants And Desires.

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.

In General Those Who Nothing Have To Say Contrive To Spend The Longest Time In Doing It.

In The Scale Of The Destinies, Brawn Will Never Weigh So Mach As Brain.

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.

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.

All The Beautiful Sentiments In The World Weigh Less Than A Single Lovely Action.

A Man Is Old When He Can Pass An Apple Orchard And Not Remember The Stomachache.

Folks Never Understand The Folks They Hate.

Greatly Begin. Though Thou Have Time, But For A Line, Be That Sublime. Not Failure, But Low Aim Is Crime.

A Sneer Is The Weapon Of The Weak.

[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.

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.

One Learns More Metaphysics From A Single Temptation Than From All The Philosophers.

It ["the Ancient Mariner"] Is Marvellous In Its Mastery Over That Delightfully Fortuitous Inconsequence That Is The Adamantine Logic Of Dreamland.

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.

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.

Silence Is Sorrow's Best Food.

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.

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.

Old Gold Has A Civilizing Virtue Which New Gold Must Grow Old To Be Capable Of Secreting.

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 Ages Drowsy Blood Still Shouts The Inspiring Sea.

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.

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.

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.

Granting Our Wish Is One Of Fate's Saddest Jokes.

O Visionary World, Condition Strange, Where Naught Abiding Is But Only Change.

Attention Is The Stuff That Memory Is Made Of, And Memory Is Accumulated Genius.

Nature, They Say, Doth Dote, And Cannot Make A Man Save On Some Worn-out Plan, Repeating Us By Rote.

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.

May Is A Pious Fraud Of The Almanac.

There Is No Bore We Dread Being Left Alone With So Much As Our Own Minds.

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.

The Material Of Thought Re-acts Upon The Thought Itself.

A Friendship Counting Nearly Forty Years Is The Finest Kind Of Shade-tree I Know.

To Win The Secret Of A Weed's Plain Heart.

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.

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.

They Are Slaves Who Fear To Speak, For The Fallen And The Weak.

Freedom Needs All Her Poets; It Is They Who Give Her Aspirations Wings, And To The Wiser Law Of Music Sway Her Wild Imaginings.

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.

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.

There Is Nothing So Desperately Monotonous As The Sea, And I No Longer Wonder At The Cruelty Of Pirates.

He Mastered Whatever Was Not Worth The Knowing.

Who Speaks The Truth Stabs Falsehood To The Heart.

There Is No Better Ballast For Keeping The Mind Steady On Its Keel, And Saving It From All Risk Of Crankiness, Than Business.

In The Parliament Of The Present Every Man Represents A Constituency Of The Past.

Endurance Is The Crowning Quality.

Such Power There Is In Clear-eyed Self-restraint.

Here Was A Type Of The True Elder Race, And One Of Plutarch's Men Talked With Us Face To Face.

A Marciful Providunce Fashioned Us Holler O' Purpose Thet We Might Our Principles Swaller.

The Dandelions And Buttercups Gild All The Lawn: The Drowsy Bee Stumbles Among The Clover Tops, And Summer Sweetens All To Me.

Compromise Makes A Good Umbrella, But A Poor Roof.

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.

Once To Every Man And Nation Comes The Moment To Decide.

Knowing Who You Are

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.

The Nurse Of Full-grown Souls Is Solitude.

Stern Men With Empires In Their Brains.

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.

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.

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.

To Put More Faith In Lies And Hate Than Truth And Love, Is The True Atheism.

Analysis Is Carried Into Everything. Even Deity Is Subjected To Chemical Tests.

The Time Is Ripe, And Rotten-ripe, For Change.

And What Is So Rare As A Day In June? Then, If Ever, Come Perfect Days.

With Every Anguish Of Our Earthly Part The Spirit's Sight Grows Clearer.

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.

Winds Wanders, And Dews Drip Earthward; Rains Fall, Suns Rise And Set; Earth Whirls, And All But To Prosper A Poor Little Violet.

It Is By Presence Of Mind In Untried Emergencies That The Native Metal Of Man Is Tested.

Presence Of Mind

Puritanism, Believing Itself Quick With The Seed Of Religious Liberty, Laid, Without Knowing It, The Egg Of Democracy.

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!

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.

It Is The Privilege Of Genius That Life Never Grows Common Place, As It Does For The Rest Of Us.

Life Is A Sheet Of Paper White / Whereon Each One Of Us May Write / His Word Or Two, And Then Comes Night.

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.

I Don't Believe In Princerple, But Oh I Du In Interest.

There Is Only One Thing Better Than Tradition And That Is The Original And Eternal Life Out Of Which All Tradition Takes Its Rise.

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.

Fools, When Their Roof-tree Falls, Think It Doomsday.

There Are Two Kinds Of Weakness, That Which Breaks And That Which Bends.

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.

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.

Though Old The Thought And Oft Exprest, Tis His At Last Who Says It Best.

He's True To God Who's True To Man.

Children Are God's Apostles, Sent Forth, Day By Day, To Preach Of Love, And Hope, And Peace.

My Gran'ther's Rule Was Safer 'n 't Is To Crow: Don't Never Prophesy - Onless Ye Know.

A Wise Man Travels To Discover Himself.

Love Lives On, And Hath A Power To Bless When They Who Loved Are Hidden In The Grave.

You've Gut To Git Up Airly Ef You Want To Take In God.

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?

Not Suffering, But Faint Heart, Is Worst Of Woes.

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.

His Heart Kep' Goin' Pity-pat, But Hern Went Pity-zekle.

To Genius Life Never Grows Commonplace.

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.

All Thoughtful Men Are Solitary And Original In Themselves.

Laborin' Man An' Laborin' Woman Hev One Glory An' One Shame; Ev'y Thin' Thet' S Done Inhuman Injers All On 'em The Same.

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.

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.

Large Charity Doth Never Soil, But Only Whitens Soft White Hands.

A Great Man Is Made Up Of Qualities That Meet Or Make Great Occasions.

The Opening Of The First Grammar School Was The Opening Of The First Trench Against Monopoly In Church And State.

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.

Comparative Criticism Teaches Us That Moral And Aesthetic Defects Are More Nearly Related Than Is Commonly Supposed.

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.

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.

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.

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.

If The Devil Take A Less Hateful Shape To Us Than To Our Fathers, He Is As Busy With Us As With Them.

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.

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.

Truth, After All, Wears A Different Face To Everybody, And It Would Be Too Tedious To Wait Till All Were Agreed.

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?

Good Luck Is The Willing Handmaid Of Upright, Energetic Character, And Conscientious Observance Of Duty.

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.

There Is No Good In Arguing With The Inevitable. The Only Argument Available With An East Wind Is To Put On Your Overcoat.

The Fireflies O'er The Meadow In Pulses Come And Go.

Life Is The Jailer, Death The Angel Sent To Draw The Unwilling Bolts And Set Us Free.

Who Gives Himself With His Alms Feeds Three, Himself, His Hungering Neighbor And Me.

What Men Prize Most Is A Privilege, Even If It Be That Of Chief Mourner At A Funeral.

Life Seems A Jest Of Fate's Contriving.

Here Come The Hum The Golden Bees Underneath Full Blossomed Trees, At Once With Glowing Fruit And Flowers Crowned.

The Better Part Of Every Man's Education Is That Which He Gives Himself.

A Stray Hair, By Its Continued Irritation, May Give More Annoyance Than A Smart Blow.

Mishaps Are Like Knives, That Either Serve Us Or Cut Us, As We Grasp Them By The Blade Or The Handle.

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.

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.

New Occasions Teach New Duties.

Onward And Upward

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.

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.

Be He Nowhere Else, God Is In All That Liberates And Lifts, In All That Humbles, Sweetens, And Consoles.

Trending Author

Category