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Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or by the handle.
Topic: Advice / Experience / Wisdom
Source: None
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Sence I've ben here, I've hired a chap to look about for me,
To git me a transplantable an' thrifty fem'ly-tree.
Topic: Ancestry
Source: The Biglow Papers (2nd series, no. 3, III)
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Not caring, so that sumpter-horse, the back
Be hung with gaudy trappings, in what course
Yea, rags most beggarly, they clothe the soul.
Topic: Apparel
Source: Fireside Travels
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There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only
argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat.
Topic: Argument
Source: Democracy and Other Addresses, Democracy
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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!
Topic: Autumn
Source: An Indian Summer Reverie
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He seemed a cherub who had lost his way
And wandered hither, so his stay
With us was short, and 'twas most meet,
That he should be no delver in earth's clod,
Nor need to pause and cleanse his feet
To stand before his God:
O blest word--Evermore!
Topic: Babyhood
Source: Threnodia
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Listen! O, listen!
Here come the hum the golden bees
Underneath full blossomed trees,
At once with glowing fruit and flowers crowned.
Topic: Bees
Source: The Sirens (l. 94)
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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.
Topic: Beggary
Source: The Beggar
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It is good
To lengthen to the last a sunny mood.
Topic: Cheerfulness
Source: Legend of Brittany (pt. I, st. 35)
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"What means this glory round our feet,"
The Magi mused, "more bright than morn!"
And voices chanted clear and sweet,
"To-day the Prince of Peace is born."
Topic: Christmas
Source: Christmas Carol
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Communism means barbarism.
Topic: Communism
Source: None
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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.
Topic: Comparisons
Source: Under the Old Elm (pt. VII, st. 3)
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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.
Topic: Compromise
Source: None
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Gineral C. is a dreffle smart man:
He's been on all sides that give places or pelf;
But consistency still wuz a part of his plan;
He's been true to one party, and that is, himself;--
So John P.
Robinson, he
Sez he shall vote for Gineral C.
Topic: Consistency
Source: The Biglow Papers (series I, no. 3)
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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.
Topic: Dancing
Source: Fable for Critics (l. 492)
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Puritanism, believing itself quick with the seed of religious
liberty, laid, without knowing it, the egg of democracy.
Topic: Democracy
Source: Among My Books--New England Two Centuries Ago
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Democ'acy gives every man
A right to be his own oppressor.
Topic: Democracy
Source: The Biglow Papers (series 2, no. 7)
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Democracy is the form of government that gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.
Topic: Democracy
Source: None
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The thing we long for, that we are
For one transcendent moment.
Topic: Desire
Source: Longing
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The future works out great men's destinies;
The present is enough for common souls,
Who, never looking forward, are indeed
Mere clay wherein the footprints of their age
Are petrified forever.
Topic: Destiny
Source: Act for Truth
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Thet tells the story! Thet's wut we shall git
By tryin' squirtguns on the burnin' Pit;
For the day never comes when it'll du
To kick off dooty like a worn-out shoe.
Topic: Duty
Source: The Biglow Papers (no. 11)
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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!
Topic: Easter
Source: Godminster Chimes (st. 7)
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One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning.
Topic: Experience
Source: Among My Books--Shakespeare Once More
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Greatly begin! Though thou have time
But for a line, be that sublime--
Not failure, but low aim is crime.
Topic: Failure
Source: For an Autograph
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Not failure, but low aim, is crime.
Topic: Failure
Source: None
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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.
Topic: Faith
Source: My Study Windows--Abraham Lincoln
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Sentiment is intellectualized emotion, emotion precipitated, as
it were, in pretty crystals by the fancy.
Topic: Fancy
Source: Among My Books--Rousseau and the Sentimentalists
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Two meanings have our lightest fantasies,
One of the flesh, and of the spirit one.
Topic: Fancy
Source: Sonnet XXXIV
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Her new bark is worse than ten times her old bite.
Topic: Faults
Source: A Fable for Critics (l. 28)
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Tiny Salmoneus of the air
His mimic bolts the firefly threw.
Topic: Fireflies
Source: The Lesson
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The fireflies o'er the meadow
In pulses come and go.
Topic: Fireflies
Source: Midnight (st. 3)
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Fortune is the rod of the weak, and the staff of the brave.
Topic: Fortune
Source: None
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It is the privilege of genius that to it life never grows commonplace as to the rest of us.
Topic: Genius
Source: None
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Not what we give, but what we share,--
For the gift without the giver is bare.
Topic: Gifts
Source: Vision of Sir Launfal (pt. II, st. 8)
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This goin' ware glory waits ye haint one agreeable feetur.
Topic: Glory
Source: The Biglow Papers (first series, no. II)
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A great man is made up of qualities that meet or make great
occasions.
Topic: Greatness
Source: My Study Windows--Garfield
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Laborin' man an' laborin' woman
Hev one glory an' one shame;
Ev'ything thet's done inhuman
Injers all on 'em the same.
Topic: Humanity
Source: The Biglow Papers (first series, no. 1, st. 10)
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When I could not sleep for cold
I had fire enough in my brain,
And builded with roofs of gold
My beautiful castles in Spain!
Topic: Imagination
Source: Aladdin (st. 1)
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The very room, coz she was in,
Seemed warm f'om floor to ceilin'.
Topic: Influence
Source: The Biglow Papers (second series, The Courtin', st. 6)
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Let us be of good cheer, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never happen.
Topic: Inspirational
Source: None
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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.
Topic: June
Source: The Vision of Sir Launfal
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No price is set on the lavish summer;
June may be had by the poorest comer.
Topic: June
Source: The Vision of Sir Launfal (pt. I, prelude)
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Light is the symbol of truth.
Topic: Light
Source: None
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Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character. - Among My Books, 1870.
Topic: Loneliness and Solitude
Source: None
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O wild and wondrous midnight,
There is a might in thee
To make the charmed body
Almost like spirit be,
And give it some faint glimpses
Of immortality.
Topic: Midnight
Source: Midnight
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That cause is strong which has not a multitude, but one strong man behind it.
Topic: Minority
Source: None
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Light is the symbol of truth.
Topic: Miscellaneous
Source: None
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Let us be of good cheer, however, remembering that the
misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never come.
Topic: Misfortune
Source: Democracy and Addresses--Democracy
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A woman's love
Is mighty, but a mother's heart is weak,
And by its weakness overcomes.
Topic: Motherhood
Source: Legend of Brittany (pt. II, st. 43)
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For there's nothing we read of in torture's inventions,
Like a well-meaning dunce, with the best of intentions.
Topic: Motive
Source: A Fable for Critics (l. 250)
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