O. Henry Quotes

The mature person meets the demands of life, while the immature person demands that life meet her demands.

Organizations are communities of human beings, not collections of human resources

Behave so the aroma of your actions may enhance the general sweetness of the atmosphere.

All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong.

Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody.

It's time to start living the life you've imagined.

Anyone who keeps learning stays young.

Government never furthered any enterprise but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way.

I am an optimist because I want to change things for the better and I know that blood has to be spilled and disharmony and cruelty are necessary to do that.

What has destroyed every previous civilization has been the tendency to the unequal distribution of wealth and power.

Whether you believe you can or not, you're right.

The chief lesson I have learned in a long life is that the only way you can make a man trustworthy is to trust him; and the surest way to make him untrustworthy is to distrust him.

The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders are no more. I Am Not A Virginian, But An American!

The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.

In expanding the field of knowledge we but increase the horizon of ignorance.

To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.

Christ's followers cannot expect better treatment in the world than their Master had.

Reading builds the educated and informed electorate so vital to our democracy.

An enterprise is a community of human beings, not a collection of "human resources".

'Twas Easter-Sunday. The full-blossomed trees Filled all the air with fragrance and with joy.

Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.

The quality will remain when the price is forgotten.

I was a student at Harvard, and that's where I learned about so-called avant-garde music. Jackson Pollock, abstract expressionism and painting were well known at this time.

I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.

The fire is the main comfort of the camp, whether in summer or winter, and is about as ample at one season as at another. It is as well for cheerfulness as for warmth and dryness.

That problem has been going on since men and women and their children moved from the plains and into caves. How many times have you heard Howard Cunningham talking to Marian about shopping? Too many.

When Richie Cunningham drank too many beers, his parents sat him down and explained their concerns. If you live on this earth, you find out that we are all the same.

Learning is not doing; it is reflecting on doing.

You will not grow without attempting to do things you are unable to do.

Times change, and we change with them.

Handsome is that handsome does.

I have found the Iron to be my greatest friend. It never freaks out on me, never runs. Friends may come and go. But two hundred pounds is always two hundred pounds

Mercy to animals means mercy to mankind.

Helping others is like helping yourself.

The Bible is a letter God has sent to us; prayer is a letter we send to him.

The bluebird carries the sky on his back.

A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs. It's jolted by every pebble on the road.

Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.

Something is wanting, and something must be done, or we shall be involved in all the horror of failure, and civil war without a prospect of its termination.

We have no eternal allies, and we have not perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.

The thistle is a prince. Let any man that has an eye for beauty take a view of the whole plant, and where will he see a more expressive grace and symmetry; and where is there a more kingly flower?

Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody expects of you. Never excuse yourself.

A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition.

It takes two to speak the truth: one to speak, and another to hear.

We don't choose what we will do for God; He invites us to join Him where He wants to involve us.

The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.

A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault.

If we love one another, nothing, in truth, can harm us, whatever mischances may happen.

Take the best that exists and make it better.

Strategy is a pattern in a stream of decisions