William Dean Howells Quotes
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Lord, for the erring thoughtNot into evil wrought:Lord, for the wicked willBetrayed and baffled still:For the heart from itself kept,Our thanksgiving accept.
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Out of the fragrant heart of bloom, The bobolinks are singing; Out of the fragrant heart of bloom The apple-tree whispers to the room, "Why art thou but a nest of gloom While the bobolinks are singing?
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n artistic atmosphere does not create artists a literary atmosphere does not create literators; poets and painters spring up where there was never a verse made or a picture seen. This suggests that God is no more idle now than He was at the beginning, but that He is still and forever shaping the human chaos into the instruments and means of beauty.
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A friend knows how to allow for mere quantity in your talk, and only replies to the quality.
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Inequality is as dear to the American heart as liberty itself.
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People naturally despise a dependant.
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Each one of us must suffer long to himself before he can learn that he is but one in a great community of wretchedness which has been pitilessly repeating itself from the foundation of the world.
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The difficulty is to know conscience from self-interest.
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He who sleeps in continual noise is wakened by silence.
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The wrecks of slavery are fast growing a fungus crop of sentiment.
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Lord, for the erring thought Not unto evil wrought: Lord, for the wicked will Betrayed, and baffled still: For the heart from itself kept, Our thanksgiving accept. For ignorant hopes that were Broken to our blind prayer: For pain, death, sorrow, sent Unto our chastisement: For all loss of seeming good, Quicken our gratitude.
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The swelling and towering omnibuses, the huge trucks and wagons and carriages, the impetuous hansoms and the more sobered four-wheelers, the pony-carts, donkey-carts, hand-carts, and bicycles which fearlessly find their way amidst the turmoil, with foot-passengers winding in and out, and covering the sidewalks with their multitude, give the effect of a single monstrous organism, which writhes swiftly along the channel where it had run in the figure of a flood till you were tired of that metaphor. You are now a molecule of that vast organism.
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I know, indeed, of nothing more subtly satisfying and cheering than a knowledge of the real good will and appreciation of others. Such happiness does not come with money, nor does it flow from fine physical state. It cannot be brought. But it is the keenest joy, after all; and the toiler's truest and best reward.
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The secret of the man who is universally interesting is that he is universally interested.
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The conqueror is regarded with awe; the wise man commands our respect; but it is only the benevolent man that wins our affection.
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Christ and the life of Christ is at this moment inspiring the literature of the world as never before, and raising it up a witness against waste and want and war. It may confess Him, as in Tolstoi's work it does, or it may deny Him, but it cannot exclude Him; and in the degree that it ignores His spirit, modern literature is artistically inferior. In other words, all good literature is now Christmas literature.
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The disposition to give a cup of cold water to a disciple is a far nobler property than the finest intellect. Satan has a fine intellect, but not the image of God.
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What the American public wants in the theater is a tragedy with a happy ending.
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There will presently be no room in the world for things; it will be filled up with the advertisements of things.
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How is it the great pieces of good luck fall to us?
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Wisdom and goodness are twin-born, one heart must hold both sisters, never seen apart.
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See how today's achievement is only tomorrow's confusion;See how possession always cheapens the thing that was precious.
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Is it worth while to observe that there are no Venetian blinds in Venice?
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A man never sees all that his mother has been to him until it's too late to let her know that he sees it.
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Some people stay longer in an hour than others can in a week.
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Do not trouble yourselves about standards or ideals; but try to be faithful and natural: remember that there is no greatness, no beauty, which does not come from truth to your own knowledge of things; and keep on working, even if your work is not long remembered.
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You'll find as you grow older that you weren't born such a great while ago after all. The time shortens up.
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The mortality of all inanimate things is terrible to me, but that of books most of all.
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Primitive societies without religion have never been found.
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Why art thou but a nest of gloom While the bobolinks are singing?
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