O. Henry Quotes

Change is not always progress... A fever of newness has everywhere been confused with the spirit of progress.

Our clothing, our food, our household furnishings - all could be much simpler than they now are and at the same time be better looking

If there is one thing which I would banish from the earth it is fear.

People can have the Model T in any color – so long as it’s black.

Any colour - so long as it's black.

All life is experience, and one level is exchanged for another only when its lesson is learned.

There is only a "marginal difference" separating those who are truly successful and those who merely do well.Whether you believe you can do something or not, you are right!

Hard knocks have a place and value, but hard thinking goes farther in less time.

Every man is better for a period of work under the open sky.

Wars do not end wars any more than an extraordinarily large conflagration does away with the fire hazard.

The high wage begins down in the shop. If it is not created there it cannot get into pay envelopes. There will never be a system invented which will do away with the necessity for work.

Labour is the human element which makes the fruitful seasons of the earth useful to men.

Don't find the fault, find the remedy

Man minus the Machine is a slave; Man plus the Machine is a freeman.

Remember that every drop of rain that falls bears into the bosom of the earth a quality of beautiful fertility.

Praise, my soul, the King of Heaven; To his feet thy tribute bring. Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven, Who like me his praise should sing?

Abide with me: fast falls the eventide; The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide.

A man may be variously accomplished, and yet be a feeble poet.

When we idealize the real, we sacrifice to artistic fancy.

Raffael's drapery is the assistant of character, in Michelangelo it envelopes grandeur; it is in Reubens the ponderous robe of pomp.

Music has been in our family for generations.

Among the many strange servilities mistaken for pieties, one of the least lovely is that which hopes to flatter God by despising the world, and vilifying human nature.

The people themselves must think, because the people alone can act.

In Science the paramount appeal is to the Intellect-its purpose being instruction; in Art, the paramount appeal is to the Emotions-its purpose being pleasure.

No man was ever eloquent by trying to be eloquent, but only by being so.

Literature delivers tidings of the world within and the world without.

The methods by which a trade union can alone act, are necessarily destructive; its organization is necessarily tyrannical.

Progressive societies outgrow institutions as children outgrow clothes.

That amid our highest civilization men faint and die with want is not due to the niggardliness of nature, but to the injustice of man.

Everybody works but the vacant lot

To some men popularity is always suspicious. Enjoying none themselves, they are prone to suspect the validity of those attainments which command it.

The march of invention has clothed mankind with powers of which a century ago the boldest imagination could not have dreamt.

The value of a thing is the amount of laboring or work that its possession will save the possessor.

I do not think that any sorrow of youth or manhood equalled in intensity or duration the black and hopeless misery which followed the wrench of transference from a happy home to a school.

God showers upon us his gifts-more than enough for all; But like swine scrambling for food, we tread them in the mire, and rend each other.

Nature, time and patience are three great physicians.

He who has good health is young.

Hunger finds no fault with the cookery.

If you would wish the dog to follow you, feed him

Books have become our dearest companions, yielding exquisite delights and inspiring lofty aims.

The great desire of this age is for a doctrine which may serve to condense our knowledge, guide our researches, and shape our lives, so that conduct may really be the consequence of belief

Look, in neoliberalism the ruling elite understand something.

The damning tho't stuck in my throat and cut me like a knife, That she, whom all my life I'd loved, should be another's wife.

What drives people to public service is a sense of possibility. If you haven't sensed that possibility you don't get started in the same way, you don't feel you can have an impact.

If you're black in America, race is a factor in your life. Start with that assumption.

We don't have a full black community in Boston. Our people are scattered. There's a middle class where I live in Highland Park but it's not like a piece of Washington or Chicago.

A cell is regarded as the true biological atom.

That most sensitive, most delicate of instruments -- the mind of a little child!

It is always safe to assume, not that the old way is wrong, but that there may be a better way.

All bad Literature rests upon imperfect insight, or upon imitation, which may be defined as seeing at second-hand.