O. Henry Quotes

At the end of the day, you either want or you don't want to know about it. It's a mercy thing - you have to give back. However you do it, you have to give something back. You have to.

There's just something about Highbury that is difficult to describe. When you first arrive, you hardly see the stadium and wonder where it is but then you find it between two blocks of flats

The walls are raised against honest men in civic life.

The philosophy of one century is the common sense of the next.

So I'm more at home with my backpack, sleeping in a hotel room or on a bus or on an airplane, than I am necessarily on a bed. It's weird being here. It feels like I'm standing next to my real life.

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.

To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea.

A church debt is the devil's salary.

History is more or less bunk.

A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man's life as in a book. Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping. Keep the time, observe the hours of the universe, not of the cars.

The babe at first feeds upon the mother's bosom, but it is always on her heart.

Good nature is worth more than knowledge, more than money, more than honor, to the persons who possess it.

Imagine a 15-year-old kid saying, 'I have two moms - it's cool.' I don't fear that at all.

[Thine] face is not worth sunburning.

The eye is the jewel of the body.

Tears are often the telescope by which men see far into heaven.

Faith is spiritualized imagination.

There are men who can write poetry, and there are men who can read balance sheets. The men who can read balance sheets cannot write.

A strong passion for any object will ensure success, for the desire of the end will point out the means.

The legal system is often a mystery, and we, its priests, preside over rituals baffling to everyday citizens.

Our overriding goal in restructuring our financial architecture should be that taxpayers never again have to save a failing financial institution.

There is nothing greater than enthusiasm.

Our own physical body possesses a wisdom which we who inhabit the body lack. We give it orders which make no sense.

Method is more important than strength, when you wish to control your enemies. By dropping golden beads near a snake, a crow once managed To have a passer-by kill the snake for the beads.

There are two ways to reach me: by way of kisses or by way of the imagination. But there is a hierarchy: the kisses alone don't work.

Leave your pride, ego, and narcissism somewhere else. Reactions from those parts of you will reinforce your children's most primitive fears.

Money's a horrid thing to follow, but a charming thing to meet.

People tend to look at dating sort of like a safari - like they're trying to land the trophy.

Truth lies within a little and certain compass, but error is immense.

Beware how you trifle with your marvelous inheritance, this great land of ordered liberty, for if we stumble and fall, freedom and civilization everywhere will go down in ruin.

Criticism talks a good deal of nonsense, but even its nonsense is a useful force. It keeps the question of art before the world, insists upon its importance.

It couldn't have happened anywhere but in little old New York.

Those who complain most are most to be complained of.

Faith is the heroism of the intellect.

Design is nothing if not decision making.

How much the making of a garden, no matter how small, adds to the joy of living, only those who practice the arts and the science can know.

The real man is one who always finds excuses for others, but never excuses himself.

Resign yourself to the influence of the earth.

Do anything, but let it produce joy. Do anything, but let it yield ecstasy.

The truth is, there is money buried everywhere, and you have only to go to work to find it.

Voyages are accomplished inwardly.

The universe expects every man to do his duty in his parallel of latitude.

We must not just be in the world and above the world, but also of the world. To love it for what it is... is the only task. Avoid it and you are lost. Lose yourself in it, and you are free.

Writing your name can lead to writing sentences. And the next thing you'll be doing is writing paragraphs, and then books. And then you'll be in as much trouble as I am!

Next to love friendship, in my opinion, is the most valuable thing life has to offer.

For a man needs only to be turned around once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost...Not 'til we are lost do we begin to find ourselves.

It is easy enough to be moral after a good dinner beside a snug coal fire, and with our hearts well warmed with fine old port

Every man should keep a fair-sized cemetery in which to bury the faults of his friends.

Your greatest pleasure is that which rebounds from hearts that you have made glad.

First get a clear notion of what you desire to accomplish and then in all probability you will succeed in doing it.