O. Henry Quotes

The basically simple things are best, whether it's automobiles or diets or philosophy.

Duffers who consistently shank their balls are urged to buy and study Shanks - No Thanks by R.K. Hoffman, or in extreme cases, M.S. Howard's excellent Tennis for Beginners.

The Japanese position was hopeless even before the first atomic bomb fell because the Japanese had lost control of their own air.

The American President resembles the commander of a ship at sea. He must have a helm to grasp, a course to steer, a port to seek.

The power of gentleness is irresistible.

One has to kill a few of one’s natural selves to let the rest grow — a very painful slaughter of innocents.

One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.

When you come, please be so kind as to check your neuroses and psychoses at the gate... Fans and other obnoxious pests would do well to maintain silence.

Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell; and George the Third — ['Treason!' cried the Speaker] — may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it.

To Englishmen, life is a topic, not an activity.

I have had no real gratification or enjoyment of any sort more than my neighbour on the next block who is worth only half a million.

Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.

You always know the mark of a coward. A coward hides behind freedom. A brave person stands in front of freedom and defends it for others.

Flowers are the sweetest things God ever made and forgot to put a soul into.

The Artist is he who detects and applies the law from observation of the works of Genius, whether of man or Nature. The Artisan is he who merely applies the rules which others have detected.

I never knew how to worship until I knew how to love.

It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man.

Self is the only prison that can ever bind the soul.

For age is opportunity no less Than youth itself, though in another dress, And as the evening twilight fades away The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.

Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.

The way you spend Christmas is far more important than how much.

I want a soul mate who can sit me down, shut me up, tell me ten things I don't already know, and make me laugh. I don't care what you look like, just turn me on.

Who could believe in the prophecies ... that the world would end this summer, while one milkweed with faith matured its seeds.

The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest.

All by yourself, unable to express the pain of your distress with your deeper inside. You alienate yourself and everybody else.

It is never too late to give up our prejudices.

Joy, temperance, and repose, slam the door on the doctor's nose.

One who fears failure limits his activities. Failure is only the opportunity to more intelligently begin again.

If it doesn't add value, it's waste.

How beautiful is the rain! After the dust and the heat, In the broad and fiery street, In the narrow lane, How beautiful is the rain!

The tide rises, the tide falls, The twilight darkens, the curlew calls; The little waves, with their soft, white hands, Efface the footprints in the sands, And the tide rises, the tide falls.

The Mormons make the marriage ring, like the ring of Saturn, fluid, not solid, and keep it in its place by numerous satellites.

Mediocrity is the worst enemy of prosperity.

When you start to doubt yourself the real world will eat you alive.

I invented nothing new, I simply assembled the discoveries of other men behind whom there was centuries of work.

The moment a man claims a right to control the will of a fellow being by physical force, he is at heart a slaveholder.

The man who has the largest capacity for work and thought is the man who is bound to succeed.

Have you had a kindness shown? Pass it on; 'Twas not given for thee alone, Pass it on; Let it travel down the years, Let it wipe another's tears. Pass it on.

Never in the history of the world has there been a situation so bad that the government can't make it worse.

It is as absurd to argue men, as to torture them, into believing.

Every child a wanted child; every mother a willing mother.

To take up the cross of Christ is no great action done once for all; it consists in the continual practice of small duties which are distasteful to us.

Happiness is inward, and not outward; and so, it does not depend on what we have, but on what we are.

Each child in each generation chooses faith or disbelief. Faith is not an inheritance; it is a choice.

Originality is independence, not rebellion; it is sincerity, not antagonism.

I have always liked drawing, when you draw you see things more intensely.

We must confront the world now with an ethics to make it tremble, and with a dynamic to give it hope

If a man cannot be a Christian in the place where he is, he cannot be a Christian anywhere.

The soul cannot thrive in the absence of art.

Confusion is a word we have invented for an order which is not understood.