O. Henry Quotes

There is an ugly kind of forgiveness in this world--a kind of hedgehog forgiveness, shot out like quills.

You should not go to war for the privilege of withdrawal. You need to define your objective and the outcome, and it cannot be the removal of one man.

You become a superpower by being strong but also by being wise and by being farsighted. But no state is strong or wise enough to create a world order alone.

Does anyone have any questions for my answers?

Anyone who finds himself putting down several commas close to one another should reflect that he is making himself disagreeable.

Change does not necessarily assure progress, but progress implacably requires change.

What we call evil, it seems to me, is simply ignorance bumping its head in the dark.

Leaders must invoke an alchemy of great vision.

Doctor Livingstone, I presume?

The theater of my mind has a seating capacity of just one, and its sold out for all performances.

...the wise man knows that every experience is to be viewed as a blessing.

By a garden is meant mystically a place of spiritual repose, stillness, peace, refreshment, delight.

My grandfather killed my father in my mind. I know he died of cancer-but it was because of what my grandfather did to him.

For there is only one great adventure and that is inward toward the self, and for that, time nor space nor even deeds matter.

Every man is entitled to make a darn fool of himself at least once in a lifetime.

Life is constantly providing us with new funds, new resources, even when we are reduced to immobility. In life's ledger there is no such thing as frozen assets.

We have a cunning adversary, who watches to do mischief, and will promote errors, even by the words of scripture.

A tradition is kept alive only by something being added to it.

Every success is the mother of countless others.

The enchanting, and sometimes terrifying, thing is that the world can be so many things to so many different souls. That it can be, and is, all these things at once and the same time.

I made up my mind that I would hold onto nothing, that I would expect nothing.

Do you want to know the cause of war? It is capitalism, greed, the dirty hunger for dollars. Take away the capitalist and you will sweep war from the earth.

To wait on God is to live a life of desire toward Him, delight in Him, dependence on Him, and devotedness to Him.

There's more tension in golf than in boxing because golfers bring it on themselves. It's silly really because it's not as if the golf ball is going to jump up and belt you on the whiskers, is it?

Failure is Central to engineering. Every single calculation that an engineer makes is a failure calculation.

My lady's presence makes the roses red, because to see her lips they blush for shame.

Madness is tonic and invigorating. It makes the sane more sane. The only ones who are unable to profit by it are the insane.

When you give your all to something and you're hitting a wall, it just feels so wrong.

Somewhere along the way one discovers that what one has to tell is not nearly so important as the telling itself.

Birth into this life was the death of the embryo life that preceded; and the death of this will be birth into some new mode of being.

I don't think we should read for instruction but to give our souls a chance to luxuriate.

It is no wonder he wins every game. He has never done a thing in his life exept play games

Don't pass it by - the immediate, the real, the ours, the yours, the novelist's that it waits for.

How or by what magic is it, that we convey our thoughts to one another with such case and accuracy?

I didn't get much peace, but I heard in Norway that Russia might well become a huge market for tractors soon.

Things are always different from what they might be.

A generation ago there were a thousand men to every opportunity, while today there are a thousand opportunities to every man.

Dating should be a part of your life, not your life a part of dating. There is more to life than finding a date.

I majored in geology in college but have majored in Herbert Hoover ever since.

Respect is not a one way street

My soul, alas, needs these uneasinesses in outward things, to be driven to take refuge in God.

Now let me burn out for God.

I sometimes draw just for its own enjoyment.

God and eternal things are my only pleasure.

Dating is a give and take. If you only see it as "Taking," you are not getting it.

All actions and attitudes of children are graceful because they are the luxuriant and immediate offspring of the moment - divested of affectation and free from all pretense.

Christianity is not about morality. It's about reality.

I'm looking forward to the time when we all look like Polynesians.

Whatever I do is done out of sheer joy; I drop my fruits like a ripe tree. What the general reader or the critic makes of them is not my concern.

It's easier to teach a poet how to read a balance sheet than it is to teach an accountant how to write.