O. Henry Quotes
There never was a liar that had not a spot in him where he could not help admiring truth.
Where human life needs most sympathy, where usually it is the most barren, there it is that Christ is more likely to be found than anywhere else.
When leisure is a selfish luxury, its very activity, when it stirs, is apt to be only a kind of indolence taking exercise, that it may the better digest its selfishness.
All our other faculties seem to have the brown touch of earth upon them, but the imagination carries the very livery of heaven, and is God's self in the soul.
If we are like Christ, we shall seek, not to absorb, but to reflect the light which falls upon others, and thus we shall become pure and spotless.
Little lies are very dangerous, because there are so many of them, and because each one of them scours upon the character as diamond-pointed.
There is an equator that runs just under the nose: all that live below the equator are animals; all that live above it are men.
What is the disposition which makes men rejoice in good bargains? There are few people who will not be benefited by pondering over the morals of shopping.
Repentance is the turning of the soul from the way of midnight to the point of the coming sun.
A republican government in a hundred points is weaker than an autocratic government; but in this one point it is the strongest that ever existed — it has educated a race of men that are men.
Sometimes fear is wholesome and rational; it is well to swing fear as a mighty battle-axe over men's heads when no other motive will move them.
Words are but the bannerets of a great army, a few bits of waving color here and there; thoughts are the main body of the footman that march unseen below.
Religion is only another word for the right use of a man's whole self, instead of a wrong use of himself.
Money in the hands of one or two men is like a dungheap in a barnyard. So long as it lies in a mass, it does no good; but, if it is only spread out evenly on the land, everything will grow.
The first hour of the morning is the rudder of the day. It is a blessed baptism which gives the first waking thoughts into the bosom of God.
When a church is faithless to its duties, the real church is outside its walls, in the community.
He will see most without who has the best eyes within; and he who only sees with his bodily organs sees but the surface.
He who only does not appreciate floral beauty is to be pitied like any other man who is born imperfect. It is a misfortune not unlike blindness.
Where all of the man is what property he owns, it does not take long to annihilate him.
Nothing marks the change from the city to the country so much as the absence of grinding noises. The country is never silent. But its sounds are separate, distinct, and as it were, articulate.
A very common flower adds generosity to beauty. It gives joy to the poor, to the rude, and to the multitudes who could have no flowers were nature to charge a price for her blossoms.
In America there is not one single element of civilization that is not made to depend, in the end, upon public opinion.
The Bible stands alone in human literature in its elevated conception of manhood, in character and conduct.
In the ordinary business of life, industry can do anything which genius can do, and very many things which it cannot.
There are many troubles which you cannot cure by the Bible and the hymn-book, but which you can cure by a good perspiration and a breath of fresh air.
Learning, to be of much use, must have a tendency to spread itself among the common people.
Give us that calm certainty of truth, that nearness to Thee, that conviction of the reality of the life to come, which we shall need to bear us through the troubles of this.
Christ is risen! There is life, therefore, after death! His resurrection is the symbol and pledge of universal resurrection!
Every man carries a menagerie in himself; and, by stirring him up all around, you will find every sort of animal represented there.
Books are the true metempsychosis,--they are the symbol and presage of immortality. The dead men are scattered, and none shall find them. Behold they are here! they do but sleep.
