O. Henry Quotes

If anything ail a man, so that he does not perform his functions, if he have a pain in his bowels even,- for that is the seat of sympathy,-he forthwith sets about reforming the world.

Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.

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

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 using everything for God.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

Never excuse yourself.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

Anger cannot rest in the bosom where love reigns.

None live so easily, so pleasantly, as those that live by faith.

God's favour is happiness.

Saying and doing are two things.

A state of apostasy is worse than a state of ignorance.

Scriptures were written, not to satisfy our curiosity and make us astronomers, but to lead us to God, and make us saints.

Brotherly love is the badge of Christ's disciples.

Better to get up late and be wide awake then, than to get up early and be asleep all day.

He rolls it under his tongue as a sweet morsel.

Liberty, the greatest of all earthly blessings - give us that precious jewel and you may take everything else!

My advice to you, if you should ever be in a hold up, is to line up with the cowards and save your bravery for an occasion when it may be of some benefit to you.

All great men have declared that they owe their sucess to the aid and encouragement of some brilliant woman.

Those whom we first love we seldom marry

Perhaps there is no happiness in life so perfect as the martyr's.

Women's weapon, water-drops.

She had become so thoroughly annealed into his life that she was like the air he breathed--necessary but scarcely noticed.

There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl.

He seemed to be made of sunshine and blood-red tissue and clear weather.

Bolivar cannot carry double

Whenever he saw a dollar in another man's hands he took it as a personal grudge, if he couldn't take it any other way.

If man knew how women pass the time when they are alone, they'd never marry.

He studied cities as women study their reflections.

We love in others what we lack ourselves, and would be everything but what we are.