“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 
80% of people like this quote
Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.
James Russell Lowell
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If youth be a defect, it is one that we outgrow only too soon.
James Russell Lowell
59% of people like this quote