O. Henry Quotes
Ye are better than all the ballads That ever were sung or said; For ye are living poems, And all the rest are dead.
Nothing useless is, or low; Each thing in its place is best; And what seems but idle show Strengthens and supports the rest.
Authors must not, like Chinese soldiers, expect to win victories by turning somersets in the air.
Love makes its record in deeper colors as we grow out of childhood into manhood.
Many people do not allow their principles to take root, but pull them up every now and then, as children do the flowers they have planted, to see if they are growing.
The emigrant's way o'er the western desert is mark'd by Camp-fires long consum'd and bones that bleach in the sunshine.
What else remains for me? Youth, hope and love; To build a new life on a ruined life.
Death is the chillness that precedes the dawn; We shudder for a moment, then awake In the broad sunshine of the other life.
Burn, O evening hearth, and waken Pleasant visions, as of old! Though the house by winds be shaken, Safe I keep this room of gold!
Dost thou know what a hero is? Why, a hero is as much as one should say, a hero.
The smoking flax before it burst to flame Was quenched by death, and broken the bruised reed.
What discord should we bring into the universe if our prayers were all answered! Then we should govern the world, and not God. And do you think we should govern it better?
A man must be of a very quiet and happy nature, who can long endure the country; and, moreover, very well contented with his own insignificant person.
As the heart is, so is love to the heart. It partakes of its strength or weakness, its health or disease.
Perhaps the greatest lesson which the lives of literary men teach us is told in a single word* Wait!
O thou sculptor, painter, poet! Take this lesson to thy heart: That is best which lieth nearest; Shape from that thy work of art.
Stars of earth, these golden flowers; emblems of our own great resurrection; emblems of the bright and better land.
The poor too often turn away unheard, From hearts that shut against them with a sound That will be heard in heaven.
A millstone and the human heart are driven ever round, If they have nothing else to grind, they must themselves be ground.
The swallow is come! The swallow is come! O, fair are the seasons, and light Are the days that she brings, With her dusky wings, And her bosom snowy white!
Were half the power that fills the world with terror, Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts, Given to redeem the human mind from error, There were no need of arsenals or forts.
It is curious to note the old sea-margins of human thought! Each subsiding century reveals some new mystery; we build where monsters used to hide themselves.
By the shore of Gitche Gumee, By the shining Big-Sea-Water, At the doorway of his wigwam, In the pleasant Summer morning, Hiawatha stood and waited.
The men that women marry, And why they marry them, will always be A marvel and a mystery to the world.
All are architects of Fate, Working in these walls of Time; Some with massive deeds and great, Some with ornaments of rhyme.
We waste our best years in distilling the sweetest flowers of life into potions which, after all, do not immortalize, but only intoxicate.