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The Purely Great Whose Soul No Siren Passion Could Unsphere, Thou Nameless, Now A Power And Mixed With Fate.

-James Russell Lowell

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The Purely Great Whose

James Russell Lowell

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The Purely Great Whose Soul No Siren Passion Could Unsphere, Thou Nameless, Now A Power And Mixed With Fate.

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The Surest Plan To Make A Man Is, Think Him So.

Life Seems A Jest Of Fate's Contriving.

Life May Be Given In Many Ways, And Loyalty To Truth Be Sealed As Bravely In The Closet As The Field.

Better One Bite At Forty, Of Truths Bitter Rind, Than The Hot Wine That Gushed From The Vintage Of Twenty.

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

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.

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

Knowing Who You Are

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.

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

The Eye Is The Notebook Of The Poet.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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.

Forget Everything

May Is A Pious Fraud Of The Almanac.

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.

Praise Follows Truth Afar Off, And Only Overtakes Her At The Grave; Plausibility Clings To Her Skirts And Holds Her Back Till Then

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.

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

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

Presence Of Mind

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?

In The Gain Or Loss Of One Race All The Rest Have Equal Claim.

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.

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

Silence Is Sorrow's Best Food.

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

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.

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.

Darkness Is Strong, And So Is Sin, But Surely God Endures Forever!

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?"

New Occasions Teach New Duties, Time Makes Ancient Good Uncouth; They Must Upward Still And Onward, Who Would Keep Abreast Of Truth.

Onward And Upward

And Blessed Are The Horny Hands Of Toil.

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.

And What They Dare To Dream Of, Date To Do.

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

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

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.

All Thoughts That Mold The Age Begin Deep Down Within The Primitive Soul.

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

Idleness Induces Caprice.

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.

Fortune Is The Rod Of The Weak, And The Staff Of The Brave.

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

Metaphor Is No Argument, Though It Be Sometimes The Gunpowder To Drive One Home, And Imbed It In The Memory.

'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.

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

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.

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.

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

The Victory's In Believing.

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.

A Sneer Is The Weapon Of The Weak.

Earth's Biggest Country 's Gut Her Soul, An' Risen Up Earth's Greatest Nation.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

Violet! Sweet Violet! Thine Eyes Are Full Of Tears; Are They Wet Even Yet With The Thought Of Other Years?

Fate Loves The Fearless.

The Purely Great Whose Soul No Siren Passion Could Unsphere, Thou Nameless, Now A Power And Mixed With Fate.

True Scholarship Consists In Knowing Not What Things Exist, But What They Mean; It Is Not Memory But Judgment.

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

Many-sidedness Of Culture Makes Our Vision Clearer And Keener In Particulars.

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.

The Devil Loves Nothing Better Than The Intolerance Of Reformers.

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

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.

Fate Loves Best Such Syllables As Are Sweet And Sonorous On The Tongue.

A Weed Is No More Than A Flower In Disguise, Which Is Seen Through At Once, If Love Give A Man Eyes.

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

Ef You Want Peace, The Thing You've Gut To Du Is Jes' To Show You're Up To Fightin', Tu.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Stories Now, To Suit A Public Taste, Must Be Half Epigram, Half Pleasant Vice.

That Love For One, From Which There Doth Not Spring Wide Love For All, Is But A Worthless Thing.

What A Sense Of Security In An Old Book Which Time Has Criticized For Us!

And The Choice Goes By Forever 'twixt That Darkness And That Light.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

To Have Greatly Dreamed Precludes Low Ends.

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.

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

Moral Supremacy Is The Only One That Leaves Monuments, And Not Ruins, Behind It.

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

He Mastered Whatever Was Not Worth The Knowing.

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.

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.

A Ginooine Statesman Should Be On His Guard, If He Must Hev Beliefs, Not To B'lieve 'em Too Hard.

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.

Not Failure, But Low Aim, Is Crime.

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.

Slow Are The Steps Of Freedom, But Her Feet Turn Never Backward.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Blessed Are They Who Have Nothing To Say And Who Cannot Be Persuaded To Say It.

Heaven Is Neither Here Nor There To Me. Everywhere And Nowhere. Just Not In Between, But I Believe In Heaven.

Talent Is That Which Is In A Man's Power; Genius Is That In Whose Power A Man Is.

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

The Nunneries Of Silent Nooks, The Murmured Longing Of The Wood.

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

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

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.

The One Thing Finished In This Hasty World.

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.

No Man Can Produce Great Things Who Is Not Thoroughly Sincere In Dealing With Himself.

That Pernicious Sentiment, "our Country, Right Or Wrong."

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.

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

Ah, Men Do Not Know How Much Strength Is In Poise, That He Goes The Farthest Who Goes Far Enough.

That Best Academy, A Mother's Knee.

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

This Goin' Ware Glory Waits Ye Haint One Agreeable Feetur.

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

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

Tyranny Is Always Weakness

As One Lamp Lights Another, Nor Grows Less,so Nobleness Enkindleth Nobleness.

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

The Greater Your Real Strength And Power, The Quieter It Will Be Exercised.

Stern Men With Empires In Their Brains.

All God's Angels Come To Us Disguised.

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.

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.

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.

The Heart Forgets Its Sorrow And Ache.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Who's Not Sat Tense Before His Own Heart's Curtain.

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

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.

It Is Not The Insurrections Of Ignorance That Are Dangerous, But The Revolts Of The Intelligence.

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.

The Child Is Not Mine As The First Was, I Cannot Sing It To Rest, I Cannot Lift It Up Fatherly And Bliss 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.

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.

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.

Toward No Crimes Have Men Shown Themselves So Cold- Bloodedly Cruel As In Punishing Differences Of Belief.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

If God Made Poets For Anything, It Was To Keep Alive The Traditions Of The Pure, The Holy, And The Beautiful.

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.

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.

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.

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

Pride And Weakness Are Siamese Twins.

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

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.

A Great Part Of Human Suffering Has Its Root In The Nature Of Man, And Not In That Of His Institutions.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Humbleness Is Always Grace; Always Dignity

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!

Of My Merit On That Pint You Yourself May Jedge: All Is, I Never Drink No Sperit, Nor I Haint Never Signed No Pledge.

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

Breaking Silence

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.

Tis As Easy To Be Heroes As To Sit The Idle Slaves.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Each Day The World Is Born Anew For Him Who Takes It Rightly.

Two Meanings Have Our Lightest Fantasies,- One Of The Flesh, And Of The Spirit One.

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.

No Mud Can Soil Us But The Mud We Throw.

Our Seasons Have No Fixed Returns, Without Our Will They Come And Go; At Noon Our Sudden Summer Burns, Ere Sunset All Is Snow.

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.

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.

There Is Something Magnificent In Having A Country To Love.

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.

God'll Send The Bill To You.

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 Vain We Call Old Notions Fudge, And Bend Our Conscience To Our Dealing; The Ten Commandments Will Not Budge, And Stealing Will Continue Stealing.

We Kind O' Thought Christ Went Agin War An' Pillage.

The Very Gnarliest And Hardest Of Hearts Has Some Musical Strings In It; But They Are Tuned Differently In Every One Of Us.

Communism Means Barbarism.

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.

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