quotes from classic

Tell them dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, Then beauty is its own excuse for being: Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose! I never sought to ask, I never knew: But, in my simple ignorance suppose The selfsame power that brought me there brought you.

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Between eighteen and twenty, life is like an exchange where one buys stocks, not with money, but with actions. Most men buy nothing.

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The delicious faces of children, the beauty of school-girls, "the sweet seriousness of sixteen," the lofty air of well-born, well-bred boys, t...

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Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields, Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven, And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end. The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed In a tumultuous privacy of storm.

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Nothing is dead: men feign themselves dead, and endure mock funerals and mournful obituaries, and there they stand looking out of the window, ...

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It is a fact often observed, that men have written good verses under the inspiration of passion, who cannot write well under other circumstances.

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Out of love and hatred, out of earnings and borrowings and leadings and losses; out of sickness and pain; out of wooing and worshipping; out of traveling and voting and watching and caring; out of disgrace and contempt, comes our tuition in the serene and beautiful laws.

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Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human society.

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Whenever you are sincerely pleased, you are nourished. The joy of the spirit indicates its strength. All healthy things are sweet-tempered.

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Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to the end, requires some of the same courage which a soldier needs.

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The moral sense reappears today with the same morning newness that has been from of old the fountain of beauty and strength. You say there is no religion now. 'Tis like saying in rainy weather, There is no sun, when at that moment we are witnessing one of its superlative effects.

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The thirst for adventure is the vent which Destiny offers a war, a crusade, a gold mine, a new country, speak to the imagination and offer swing and play to the confined powers.

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Skepticism is slow suicide

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The German intellect wants the French sprightliness, the fine practical understanding of the English, and the American adventure; but it has a certain probity, which never rests in a superficial performance, but asks steadily, To what end? A German public asks for a controlling sincerity.

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By the rude bridge that arched the flood,Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,Here once the embattled farmers stood,And fired the shot heard round the world.

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Self-sacrifice is the real miracle out of which all the reported miracles grow.

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His heart was as great as the world, but there was no room in it to hold the memory of a wrong.

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It is long ere we discover how rich we are. Our history, we are sure, is quite tame: we have nothing to write, nothing to infer. But our wiser years still run back to the despised recollections of childhood, and always we are fishing up some wonderful article out of that pond; until, by and by, we begin to suspect that the biography of the one foolish person we know is, in reality, nothing less than the miniature paraphrase of the hundred volumes of the Universal History.

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The life of man is the true romance, which when it is valiantly conduced, will yield the imagination a higher joy than any fiction.

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There is no architect Can build as the Muse can; She is skilful to select Materials for her plan.

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