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'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.

-James Russell Lowell

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'tis Sorrow Builds The

James Russell Lowell

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'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.

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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.

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

Death Is Delightful. Death Is Dawn, The Waking From A Weary Night Of Fevers Unto Truth And Light.

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

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.

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.

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

A Profound Common Sense Is The Best Genius For Statesmanship.

It Is Right Precious To Behold The First Long Surf Of Climbing Light Flood All The Thirsty East With Gold.

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

How Little Inventiveness There Is In Man, Grave Copier Of Copies.

Where One Person Shapes Their Life By Precept And Example, There Are A Thousand Who Have Shaped It By Impulse And Circumstances.

The Victory's In Believing.

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

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

'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.

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

Life Seems A Jest Of Fate's Contriving.

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.

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.

The Pine Is The Mother Of Legends.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Light Is The Symbol Of Truth.

Spiritual Healing

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

And Blessed Are The Horny Hands Of Toil.

To Fail At All Is To Fail Utterly.

For Only By Unlearning Wisdom Comes.

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

The Nurse Of Full-grown Souls Is Solitude.

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

He Who Is Firmly Seated In Authority Soon Learns To Think Security, And Not Progress, The Highest Lesson In Statecraft.

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.

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.

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.

Idleness Induces Caprice.

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.

It Is Only By Instigation Of The Wrongs Of Men That What Are Called The Rights Of Man Become Turbulent And Dangerous.

It Is Curious How Tyrannical The Habit Of Reading Is...

O Reputation! Dearer Far Than 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.

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

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.

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

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

Communism Means Barbarism.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

But Civlyzation Doos Git Forrid Sometimes Upon A Powder-cart.

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.

Reading Chaucer Is Like Brushing Through The Dewy Grass At Sunrise.

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.

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.

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.

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

Virtue Treads Paths That End Not In The Grave.

No Price Is Set On The Lavish Summer; June May Be Had By The Poorest Comer.

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 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.

A Poet Must Need Be Before His Own Age, To Be Even With Posterity

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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!

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

Different Faces

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.

Compromise Makes A Good Umbrella, But A Poor Roof.

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.

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

Pride And Weakness Are Siamese Twins.

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.

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.

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

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.

Who Is It Needs Such Flawless Shafts As Fate? What Archer Of His Arrows Is So Choice, Or Hits The White So Surely?

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.

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

There Is Surely Room For Yet Another Schoolmaster When A Score Of Seers Advertise Themselves In Boston Newspapers.

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.

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.

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.

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.

He Mastered Whatever Was Not Worth The Knowing.

Not Failure, But Low Aim, Is Crime.

It Is Good To Lengthen To The Last A Sunny Mood.

To Have Greatly Dreamed Precludes Low Ends.

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.

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

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

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.

The Green Grass Floweth Like A Stream Into The Oceans's Blue.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Incredulity Robs Us Of Many Pleasures, And Gives Us Nothing In Return.

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

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

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

Did Man E'er Live Saw Priest Or Woman Yet Forgive?

Worshippers Of Light Ancestral Make The Present Light A Crime.

Truth Forever On The Scaffold, Wrong Forever On The Throne.

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.

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

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?

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.

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

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

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.

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

Time Makes Ancient Good Uncouth.

Onward And Upward

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.

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

New Occasions Teach New Duties.

Onward And Upward

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.

A Woman's Love Is Mighty, But A Mother's Heart Is Weak, And By Its Weakness Overcomes.

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!

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

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.

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

The Quiet Tenderness Of Chaucer, Where You Almost Seem To Hear The Hot Tears Falling, And The Simple Choking Words Sobbed Out.

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.

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

A Wise Man Travels To Discover Himself.

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.

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.

Endurance Is The Crowning Quality, And Patience All The Passion Of Great Hearts.

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

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

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

The One Thing Finished In This Hasty World.

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

Freedom Is The Only Law Which Genius Knows.

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.

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.

Democracy Gives Every Man The Right To Be His Own Oppressor.

Democracies Have

To Make The Common Marvelous Is The Test Of Genius.

Humbleness Is Always Grace; Always Dignity

That Best Academy, A Mother's Knee.

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

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

Tiny Salmoneus Of The Air His Mimic Bolts The Firefly Threw.

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.

No Mud Can Soil Us But The Mud We Throw.

A Weed Is No More Than A Flower In Disguise.

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

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.

Sincerity Is Impossible, Unless It Pervade The Whole Being, And The Pretence Of It Saps The Very Foundation Of Character.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

I Don't Believe In Principle, But I Do In Interest.

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

A Word Once Vulgarized Can Never Be Rehabilitated.

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.

Like Streams That Keep A Summer Mind Snow-hid In Jenooary.

My Soul Is Not A Palace Of The Past.

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

The Foolish And The Dead Alone Never Change Their Opinions.

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

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

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