O. Henry Quotes

It is foolish to pretend that one is fully recovered from a disappointed passion. Such wounds always leave a scar.

Scientific understanding is our joy. Economic and political understanding is our duty.

I hate American simplicity. I glory in the piling up of complications of every sort. If I could pronounce the name James in any different or more elaborate way I should be in favor of doing it.

Though there are some disagreeable things in Venice there is nothing so disagreeable as the visitors.

Live all you can; it's a mistake not to.

The more experience and insight I obtain into human nature, the more convinced do I become that the greater portion of a man is purely animal.

The century which we are entering can be and must be the century of the common man.

We cannot but pity the boy who has never fired a gun; he is no more humane, while his education has been sadly neglected.

[The camera] may be said to make a picture of whatever it sees, the object glass is the eye of the instrument - the sensitive paper may be compared to the retina.

In the family, happiness is in the ratio in which each is serving the others, seeking one another's good, and bearing one another's burdens.

It is not part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious.

No man loses ever on a lower level by magnanimity on a higher.

All nature ... is a respiration Of the Spirit of God, who, in breathing hereafter Will inhale it into his bosom again, So that nothing but God alone will remain.

Man is the only animal whose desires increase as they are fed; the only animal that is never satisfied.

The proper study of mankind is woman.

We can never have enough of nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor.

We must never assume that which is incapable of proof.

This is a debate about our understanding of human dignity, what it means to be a member of the human family, even though tiny, powerless and unwanted

The soul never grows old.

No man ever made a great discovery without the exercise of the imagination.

I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark.

Sweet is the air with the budding haws, and the valley stretching for miles below Is white with blossoming cherry-trees, as if just covered with lighted snow.

Think of the question of mass incarceration. Think of the coding that the Republican Party has used for years, whether they're talking about Obama or blacks or Willie Horton.

I come to my solitary woodland walk as the homesick go home.

The first requisite of a sound monetary system is that it put the least possible power over the quantity or quality of money in the hands of the politicians.

My love runs deeper than the wounds.

I shall act as I think my duty requires.

Most wonderful of all are words, and how they make friends one with another.

I’ll never forget the club or him I don’t see Arsenal without Arsene Wenger

When life hands you a lemon, say, 'Oh yeah, I like lemons! What else ya got?

Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe.

You cannot receive a shock unless you have an electric affinity for that which shocks you.

The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.

Knowledge of human nature is the beginning and end of political education.

It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.

We imagined that the mildness of our government and the wishes of the people were so correspondent that we were not as other nations, requiring brutal force to support the laws.

Having proceeded to this length, for which they are now ripe, we shall have a formidable rebellion against reason, the principle of all government, and against the very name of liberty.

The sorrow which has no vent in tears may make other organs weep.

Let no man imagine that he has no influence. Whoever he may be, and wherever he may be placed, the man who thinks becomes a light and a power.

Censorship is to art as lynching is to justice.

I want to do things so wild with you that I don't know how to say them.

Surely every one realizes, at some point along the way, that he is capable of living a far better life than the one he has chosen.

Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, our faith triumphant o’er our fears, are all with thee – are all with thee!

If there is one thing I would banish from earth, it is fear. And the only way to do that is to see that there is nothing to fear - nothing in all of life to be afraid of.

By ignorance the truth is known.

We are always seeking for those things which are in the clouds, not for those that lie at our feet.

An educated person, I think, is one who not only knows a lot, but knows how to do a lot of things.

One needs to be successful in the conventional way to learn just how far away from success it may be.

To see a thing clearly in the mind makes it begin to take form.

Faith is an adventure; it is the courage of the soul to face the unknown. But that courage springs from the hope and confidence of the soul that its adventure will succeed.