“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.”
Other James Russell Lowell Quotes
Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne.
James Russell Lowell 
79% of people like this quote
Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.
James Russell Lowell
62% of people like this quote
Toward no crimes have men shown themselves so cold- bloodedly cruel as in punishing differences of belief.
James Russell Lowell
59% of people like this quote
If youth be a defect, it is one that we outgrow only too soon.
James Russell Lowell
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The mind can weave itself warmly in the cocoon of its own thoughts, and dwell a hermit anywhere.
James Russell Lowell
58% of people like this quote