It is even easier to die for a good cause, in some hour of high enthusiasm, when all that is noblest in us can be roused to one great venture, than to live for it amid wearing years of discouragement and hope delayed.
 Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands (1854). copy citation

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Author Harriet Beecher Stowe
Source Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands
Topic discouragement enthusiasm
Date 1854
Language English
Reference
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Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/6931/pg6931-images.html

Context

“But to me the unselfish patriot is more venerable for his poverty and his misfortunes.
Have we, among the thousands who speak loud of patriotism in America, many men, who, were she enfeebled, despised, and trampled, would forego self, and suffer as long, as patiently for her? It is even easier to die for a good cause, in some hour of high enthusiasm, when all that is noblest in us can be roused to one great venture, than to live for it amid wearing years of discouragement and hope delayed. There are those even here in England who delight to get up slanders against Kossuth, and not long ago some most unfounded charges were thrown out against him in some public prints. By way of counterpoise an enthusiastic public meeting was held, in which he was presented with a splendid set of Shakspeare.
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