O. Henry Quotes

Some people believe they are winners, others believe they are losers. And they are both right.

The short successes that can be gained in a brief time and without difficulty, are not worth much.

A scatterbrain is one who never has an unspoken thought.

I adopted the theory of reincarnation when I was 26. Genius is experience. Some think to seem that it is a gift or talent, but it is the fruit of long experience in many lives

We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke strops our vice.

Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black.

Men of genius are often dull and inert in society; as the blazing meteor, when it descends to earth, is only a stone.

He who would really benefit mankind must reach them through their work.

The farther we get away from the land, the greater our insecurity.

Those who work much do not work hard.

Wear it if it clashes.

Whether we think we can or cannot, we are right.

Nothing can be made except by makers, nothing can be managed except by managers. Money cannot make anything and money cannot manage anything.

The twilight that surrounds the border-land of old romance.

It [is of] some advantage to live a primitive and frontier life, though in the midst of an outward civilization, if only to learn what are the gross necessities of life.

There's no such thing as no chance.

If you control the food, you control a nation. If you control the energy, you control a region. If you control the money, you control the world.

I have seen how the foundations of the world are laid, and I have not the least doubt that it will stand a good while.

By unseen hands uplifted in the light Of sunset, yonder solitary cloud Floats, with its white apparel blown abroad, And wafted up to heaven.

O weary hearts! O slumbering eyes! O drooping souls, whose destinies Are fraught with fear and pain, Ye shall be loved again.

Then fell upon the house a sudden gloom, a shadow on those features fair and thin. And softly, from the hushed and darkened room, two angels issued, where but one went in.

I have learned that even the smallest house can be a home.

Humility like darkness reveals the heavenly lights.

Some people think they can; some think they can't. They are probably both right.

Sorrow is Mount Sinai. If one will, one may go up and talk with God, face to face.

A man must be a born fool who voluntarily engages in controversy with Mr. Adams on a question of fact. I doubt whether he was ever mistaken in his life.

If you wish to avoid foreign collision, you had better abandon the ocean.

A parent gives life, but as parent, gives no more. A murderer takes life, but his deed stops there. A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.

The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness. It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.

A man's religion is himself. If he is right-minded toward God, he is religious; if the Lord Jesus Christ is his schoolmaster, then he is Christianly religious.

The social side of Washington was to be taken for granted as three-fourths of existence. Politics and reform became the detail, and waltzing the profession

Maple-trees are the cows of trees (spring-milked).

Political parties serve to keep each other in check, one keenly watching the other.

All the sobriety which' religion needs or requires is that which real earnestness produces.

Never excuse yourself.

There is no power like oratory. Caesar controlled men by exciting their fears, Cicero by . . . swaying their passions. The influence of the one perished; that of the other continues to this day.

I have traveled a good deal in Concord; and everywhere, in shops, and offices, and fields, the inhabitants have appeared to me to be doing penance in a thousand remarkable ways.

This organization is created to prevent you from going to hell. It isn't created to take you to heaven.

The imagination, give it the least license, dives deeper and soars higher than Nature goes.

It's not the work which kills people, it's the worry. It's not the revolution that destroys machinery it's the friction.

Every fresh act of benevolence is the herald of deeper satisfaction; every charitable act a stepping-stone towards heaven.

Average human nature is very coarse, and its ideals must necessarily be average. The world never loved perfect poise. What the world does love is commonly absence of poise, for it has to be amused.

Of all joyful, smiling, ever-laughing experiences, there are none like those which spring from true religion.

The imagination is the secret and marrow of civilization. It is the very eye of faith.

The earth I tread on is not a dead inert mass. It is a body, has a spirit; is organic and fluid to the influence of its spirit and to whatever particle of the spirit is in me.

Living is death; dying is life. We are not what we appear to be. On this side of the grave we are exiles, on that citizens; on this side orphans, on that children.

Religion, in one sense, is a life of self-denial, just as husbandry, in one sense, is a work of death.

Religion is using everything for God.

I have written too much history to have faith in it; and if anyone thinks I'm wrong, I am inclined to agree with him.

Religion is the fruit of the Spirit, a Christian character, a true life.