H.W. Charles Quotes

It is only the fools who keep straining at high C all their lives.

There is but one pleasure in life equal to that of being called on to make an after-dinner speech, and that is not being called on to make one.

One of the advantages of pure congregational singing is that you can join in the singing whether you have a voice or not. The disadvantage is that your neighbor can do the same.

Let us celebrate the soil. Most men toil that they may own a piece of it; they measure their success in life by their ability to buy it.

Woman is perpetual revolution, and is that element in the world which continually destroys and recreates.

It is well known that no person who regards his reputation will ever kill a trout with anything but a fly. It requires some training on the part of the trout to take to this method.

A boy has a natural genius for combining business with pleasure.

You want to hate somebody, if you can, just to keep your powers of discrimination bright, and to save yourself from becoming a mere mush of good-nature.

The stranger who receives the rare gift of human kindness holds its value in his heart forever.

One discovers a friend by chance, and cannot but feel regret that 20 or 30 years of life may have been spent without the least knowledge of him.

The wise man does not permit himself to set up even in his own mind any comparisons of his friends. His friendship is capable of going to extremes with many people, evoked as it is by many qualities.

Each age has its choice of the death it will die.

Memory has the singular characteristic of recalling in a friend absent, as in a journey long past, only that which is agreeable.

Nature is entirely indifferent to any reform. She perpetuates a fault as persistently as a virtue.

The world so quickly adjusts itself after any loss, that the return of the departed would nearly always throw it, even the circle most interested, into confusion.

Rather, to change a habit, you must keep the old cue, and deliver the old reward, but insert a new routine.

Willpower isn’t just a skill. It’s a muscle, like the muscles in your arms or legs, and it gets tired as it works harder, so there’s less power left over for other things.

There’s something about it that makes other good habits easier.

If you want to do something that requires willpower - like going for a run after work - you have to conserve your willpower muscle during the day.

Belief is easier when it occurs within a community.

Research suggests that investment bankers are more prone to commit fraud when they feel the competitor at their heels.

There's a natural instinct embedded in friendship, a sympathy that makes us willing to fight for someone we like when they are treated unjustly.

The cooperation of NASCAR - or any other system, it turns out - persists only when everyone believes he has the opportunity to win.

Some say because music is as much about personal expression as listening pleasure, sharing is integral to why songs have value in the first place.

Since the 17th century, insurance agents have been the foremost experts on risk.

The waste from power plants is essentially what is left over when you burn coal. And as we all know, coal is a relatively dirty mineral.

America is the Saudi Arabia of coal.

It was a texture. The blackness was so intense.

Technology will move so fast that unfortunately, or fortunately for me, you will be required to buy a new phone quite often.

In order for your dreams to come true, you've got to stay awake.

I was born looking older... and I've been aging since I was a teenager.

Dancing came easy for me. Acting came hard.

Acting is ephemeral. You can't hang it on a wall. You can't throw it off. And you can't bring it out of a closet. It's there one night and it's gone the next, at least with stage acting anyhow.

You make the money in movies and TV so you can do theater. I do a play a year... somewhere.

Sometimes you succeed and sometimes you don't.

If I had my druthers, I would do only stage work.

There are many secrets in us, in the depths of our souls, that we don't want anyone to know about.

I was born a character actor.

I think I've done 200 plays and 125 movies, so I've been very lucky to have made a living at acting.

I never turned down anything and never argued with any producer or director.

I lack confidence as an actor.

I can't count how many of my friends are in the cemetery at Normandy, the heroes are still there, the real heroes.

Schoolteachers are not fully appreciated by parents until it rains all day Saturday.

Bureaucrats live on the fat of the land, while the rest of us stay skinny laboring to pay their salaries.

Etc. is a perfect word-when you can't think of the right one.

No plan can prevent a stupid person from doing the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time - but a good plan should keep a concentration from forming.

The thing that contributes to anyone's reaching the goal he wants is simple wanting that goal badly enough.

In speaking of natural rights, therefore, it is essential to remember that these alleged rights have no political force whatsoever, unless recognized and enforced by the state.

It not infrequently happens that persons without any other special qualification than the drama of their lives are precipitated into important political positions.

[R]ights do not belong to men simply as men, but because of the superior qualities, physical, intellectual, moral or political, which are characteristic of certain individuals or races.