O. Henry Quotes

Any supreme insight is a metaphor.

Labor is the handmaid of religion.

Every thought was once a poem.

Sin spoils the spirit's delicacy, and unwillingness deadens its susceptibility.

Ideals we do not make. We discover, not invent, them.

Purpose directs energy, and purpose makes energy.

If Adam had had a real hairy back, we probably wouldn't be here today.

You can't throw him back because he doesn't meet the legal size limit.

We are all prisoners of our time and place.

Tonight, I've finally learned to tell fantasy from reality. And, knowing the difference, I choose fantasy.

There's a reason why the form was originally silent

Chinese culture in general is not very religious. Confucianism is more a code of ethics than a religion, and ancestor worship is a way for parents to control you even after theyre dead.

This is the ultimate cruelty, isn't it? That I can talk and talk and to anyone listening, it's only air--too rich a diet to be swallowed by a mundane world.

Ive studied Chinese in college, but basically, Im not bilingual.

Well, there's no guarantee of failure in life like happiness in high school.

Death with honor is better than life... life with dishonor.

Living on the Gulf Coast, we often have to go through dangerous situations, whether you're a child, an adult or a senior citizen.

My kids are the most important people in the world to me.

Everything that I do in my life is geared towards my kids and their survival and giving them the best education that I can possibly give them and the best home that I can possibly give them.

I love California. I love Hollywood.

I can't pass on an acting career to my kids. But I'm going to try to juggle both.

They say I'm a natural, I have natural charisma. People say that. I don't know.

I constantly worry about my family and my kids. 'Are they O.K., what are they doing right now?'

I'm not the Hollywood type. I'm not going to pack up my bags and let me move to Hollywood and stuff like that.

I'm not the Hollywood type of person.

I've been through a lot of struggles, even though I'm young.

Music knits people together in some strange way. Same thing with food.

No matter what's offered to me, I would never in a million years be the big headed Hollywood type.

A smile appears on the faces of most archaic figures, a happiness of expression seeming to transcend that of human beings.

Society is the master, and man is the servant.

England is surrounded by enemies - by real enemies who hate her. Why? Because she tries to be honest; and she tries to be free.

Happily there exists more than one kind of beauty. There is the beauty of infancy, the beauty of youth, the beauty of maturity, and, believe me, ladies and gentlemen, the beauty of age.

It is an error to suppose that a man belongs to himself. No man does. He belongs to his wife, or his children, or his relations, or to his creditors, or to society in some form or other.

Almost everything that I behold in this wonderful country bears traces of improvement and reform - everything except Pie.

Love is that orbit of the restless soulWhose circle grazes the confines of space,Bounding within the limits of its raceUtmost extremes.

...Lovers are Like walking ghosts, they always haunt the spot Of their misdeeds.

Never ride your horse more than five-and-thirty miles a day, always taking more care of him than of yourself; which is right and reasonable, seeing as how the horse is the best animal of the two.

I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.

There is a peculiarity in the countenance, as everybody knows, which, though it cannot be described, is sure to betray the Englishman.

Science is not addressed to poets.

Language, after all, is only the use of symbols, and Art also can only affect us through symbols.

Individual experiences being limited and individual spontaneity feeble, we are strengthened and enriched by assimilating the experience of others.

Vehemence without feeling is but rant.

The opinion of the majority is not lightly to be rejected; but neither is it to be carelessly echoed.

Whatever lies beyond the limits of experience, and claims another origin than that of induction and deduction from established data, is illegitimate.

To his [ Plato's ] great disappointment, he found Anaxagoras adducing simple physical reasons, instead of the teleological reasons, which he had expected. Such a teacher could no longer allure him.

It is not enough that a man has clearness of vision, and reliance on sincerity, he must also have the art of expression, or he will remain obscure.

The magic of the pen lies in the concentration of your thoughts upon one object.

Speak for yourself and from yourself, or be silent.

The artist is called a creator.