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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.

-James Russell Lowell

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Ye Come And Go

James Russell Lowell

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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.

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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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

The Traitor To Humanity Is The Traitor Most Accurst.

The Nurse Of Full-grown Souls Is Solitude.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

He Who Keeps His Faith Only, Cannot Be Discrowned.

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.

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

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.

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

Our American Republic Will Endure Only As Long As The Ideas Of The Men Who Founded It Continue Dominant.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

That Best Academy, A Mother's Knee.

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

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

There Comes Emerson First, Whose Rich Words, Every One, Are Like Gold Nails In Temples To Hang Trophies On.

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

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

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.

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

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

Democracies Have

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.

Nature Fits All Her Children With Something To Do, He Who Would Write And Can't Write, Can Surely Review.

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.

Worshippers Of Light Ancestral Make The Present Light A Crime.

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

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

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.

Be Noble! And The Nobleness That Liesin Other Men, Sleeping, But Never Dead,will Rise In Majesty To Meet Thine Own.

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

Presence Of Mind

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.

Virtue Treads Paths That End Not In The Grave.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

What Men Call Luck Is The Prerogative Of Valiant Souls, The Fealty Life Pays Its Rightful Kings.

The Thing We Long For, That We Are For One Transcendent Moment.

Creativity Is Not The Finding Of A Thing, But The Making Something Out Of It After It Is Found.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

They Enslave Their Children's Children Who Make Compromise With Sin.

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

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.

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

Many Make The Household But Only One The Home.

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

May Is A Pious Fraud Of The Almanac.

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

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

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

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.

Books Are The Bees Which Carry The Quickening Pollen From One To Another Mind.

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.

Safe In The Hallowed Quiets Of The Past.

Folks Never Understand The Folks They Hate.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

To Have Greatly Dreamed Precludes Low Ends.

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.

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

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?"

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

Beauty Hath No True Glass, Except It Be In The Sweet Privacy Of Loving Eyes.

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

God'll Send The Bill To You.

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

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

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.

The Victory's In Believing.

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.

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

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.

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

The Don Quixote Of One Generation May Live To Hear Himself Called The Savior Of Society By The Next.

The Devil Loves Nothing Better Than The Intolerance Of Reformers.

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

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

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

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.

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.

To Genius Life Never Grows Commonplace.

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

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

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

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

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

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."

The Eye Is The Notebook Of The Poet.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Time Makes Ancient Good Uncouth.

Onward And Upward

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.

The Gift Without The Giver Is Rare.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

Let Us Be Of Good Cheer, However, Remembering That The Misfortunes Hardest To Bear Are Those Which Never Come.

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.

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.

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

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.

The Foolish And The Dead Alone Never Change Their Opinions.

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.

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

Knowing Who You Are

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.

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.

The Intellect Has Only One Failing, Which, To Be Sure, Is A Very Considerable One. It Has No Conscience.

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

The True Ideal Is Not Opposed To The Real But Lies In It; And Blessed Are The Eyes That Find It.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Tyranny Is Always Weakness

To Fail At All Is To Fail Utterly.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

The Idol Is The Measure Of The Worshipper.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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

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

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

The Sentimentalist Does Not Think Of What He Does So Much As Of What The World Will Think Of What He Does.

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

The Heart Forgets Its Sorrow And Ache.

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.

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

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.

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

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?

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

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

My Soul Is Not A Palace Of The Past.

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

That Cause Is Strong Which Has, Not A Multitude, But One Strong Man Behind It.

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

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

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.

History Is Clarified Experience.

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

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.

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

Breaking Silence

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

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

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