O. Henry Quotes
Man is at the bottom an animal, midway a citizen, and at the top divine. But the climate of this world is such that few ripen at the top.
And when no longer we can see Thee, may we reach out our hands, and find Thee leading us through death to immortality and glory.
God makes the life fertile by disappointments, as he makes the ground fertile by frosts.
Thorough selfishness destroys or paralyzes enjoyment. A heart made selfish by the contest for wealth is like a citadel stormed in war, utterly shattered.
In the morning, we carry the world like Atlas; at noon, we stoop and bend beneath it; and at night, it crushes us flat to the ground.
Our moral faculties must be placed highest, else they can no more flourish than could a plant growing under the shade and drip of trees.
The moment an ill can be patiently handled, it is disarmed of its poison, though not of its pain.
He is the happiest man who is engaged in a business which tasks the most faculties of his mind.
And now we beseech of Thee that we may have every day some such sense of God's mercy and of the power of God about us, as we have of the fullness of the light of heaven before us.
The commerce of the world is conducted by the strong, and usually it operates against the weak.
A man without ambition is like a beautiful worm - it can creep, but it cannot fly.
The soul is a temple; and God is silently building it by night and by day. Precious thoughts are building it; disinterested love is building it; all-penetrating faith is building it.
A man without mirth is like wagon without springs, in which one is caused disagreeably to jolt by every pebble over which it turns.
A man's true estate of power and riches is to be in himself; not in his dwelling or position or external relations, but in his own essential character.
A man is a great bundle of tools. He is born into this life without the knowledge of how to use them. Education is the process of learning their use.
Never be grandiloquent when you want to drive home a searching truth. Don't whip with a switch that has the leaves on, if you want it to tingle.
Conceited men often seem a harmless kind of men, who, by an overweening self-respect, relieve others from the duty of respecting them at all.
Victories that come cheap are cheap. Those only are worth having which come as the result of hard fighting.
No cradle for an emperor's child was ever prepared with so much magnificence as this world has been made for man. But it is only his cradle.
Our life is in the loom; it rolls up and is hidden as fast as it is woven. It is to be taken out of the loom only when we leave this world; then only shall we see the pattern.
The mere wit is only a human bauble. He is to life what bells are to horses-not expected to draw the load, but only to jingle while the horses draw.
Men are not put into this world to be everlastingly played on by the harping fingers of joy.
It is defeat that turns bone to flint, gristle to muscle, and makes men invincible.
The most miserable pettifogging in the world is that of a man in the court of his own consciences.
Many a man has been dined out of his religion, and his politics, and his manhood, almost.
It is one of the worst effects of prosperity to make a man a vortex instead of a fountain; so that, instead of throwing out, he learns only to draw in.
No man rides so high and in such good company as the man that allies himself to a truth.
Some men are, in regard to ridicule, like tin-roofed buildings in regard to hail: all that hits them bounds rattling off; not a stone goes through.
Providence is but another name for natural law. Natural law itself would go out in a minute if it were not for the divine thought that is behind it.
A gamester, as such, is the cool, calculating, essential spirit of concentrated, avaricious selfishness.
The disciples found angels at the grave of Him they loved; and we should always find them too, but that our eyes are too full of tears for seeing.
At the bottom of every leaf-stem is a cradle, and in it is an infant germ; the winds will rock it, the birds will sing to it all summer long, but the next season it will unfold and go alone.
There are sorrows that are not painful, but are of the nature of some acids, and give piquancy and flavor to life.
A person can no more make money suddenly and largely, and be unharmed by it, than one could suddenly grow from a child's stature to an adult's without harm.
No man is good for anything who has not some particle of obstinacy to use upon occasion.
There is not a person we employ who does not, like ourselves, desire recognition, praise, gentleness, forbearance, patience.