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God give us men. The time demands
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith, and willing hands;
Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy;
Men who possess opinions and a will;
Men who have honor,—men who will not lie;
Men who can stand before a demagogue
And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking!
Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog
In public duty, and in private thinking.

— Josiah Gilbert Holland The Marble Prophecy and Other Poems (1872)

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More quotes by Josiah Gilbert Holland

God be thanked that there are some in the world to whose hearts the barnacles will not cling.

Life is before you,— not earthly life alone, but life— a thread running interminably through the warp of eternity.

Power in its measure and degree is the measure of manhood.

The love that gushes for all is the real elixir of life — the fountain of bodily longevity. It is the lack of this that always produces the feeling of age.

The fact is that sin is the most unmanly thing in God's world. You never were made for sin and selfishness. You were made for love and obedience.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Josiah Gilbert Holland (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.