O. Henry Quotes
No doubt you can get more in your market for a quart of milk than for a quart of blood, but that is not the market that heroes carry their blood to.
It is time that we had uncommon schools, that we did not leave off our education when we begin to be men and women.
My Crown is in my heart, not on my head:Not deck'd with Diamonds, and Indian stones:Nor to be seen: my Crown is call'd Content, A Crown it is, that seldom Kings enjoy.
But Kate, dost thou understand thus much English? Canst thou love me?"Catherine: "I cannot tell."Henry: "Can any of your neighbours tell, Kate? I'll ask them.
Thus the great civilizer sends out its emissaries, sooner or later, to every sandy cape and light-house of the New World which the census-taker visits, and summons the savage there to surrender.
There is just as much beauty visible to us in the landscape as we are prepared to appreciate, and not a grain more. ... A man sees only what concerns him.
Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.
It is desirable that a man live in all respects so simply and preparedly that if an enemy take the town... he can walk out the gate empty-handed and without anxiety.
I am thinking by what long discipline and at what cost a man learns to speak simply at last.
The works of the great poets have never yet been read by mankind, for only great poets can read the.
A little library, growing larger every year, is an honourable part of a man's history. It is a man's duty to have books. A library is not a luxury, but one of the necessaries of life.
The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is, that one often comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't.
Be sure that you give the poor the aid they most need, though it be your example which leaves them far behind. If you give money, spend yourself with it, and do not merely abandon it to them.
Some men fish all their lives without knowing it is not really the fish they are after.
As for Doing-good...I have tried it fairly, and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution.
The modern cheap and fertile press, with all its translations, has done little to bring us nearer to the heroic writers of antiquity.
If money is your hope for independence, you will never have it. The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience and ability.
Those who have been bred in the school of politics fail now and always to face the facts.
He is the best sailor who can steer within fewest points of the wind and exact a motive power out of the greatest obstacles.
If a man does not keep pace with his companions perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears however measured or far away.
You have come into a hard world. I know of only one easy place in it and that is the grave.
God asks no man whether he will accept life. This is not the choice. You must take it. The only question is how.
The frontiers are not east or west north or south but wherever a man fronts a fact.
The advertisements in a newspaper are more full of knowledge in respect to what is going on in a state or community than the editorial columns are.
Simplicity simplicity simplicity. I say let your affairs be as two or three and not a hundred or a thousand instead of a million count half a dozen and keep your accounts on your thumbnail.
When I hear music I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times and to the latest.
I think that there is nothing not even crime more opposed to poetry to philosophy ay to life itself than this incessant business.
It is not the employer who pays wages - he only handles the money. It is the product that pays wages.
However mean your life is meet it and live it do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are.
Where there is a brave man in the thickest of the fight there is the post of honor.
I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than to be crowded on a velvet cushion.
The best we can do is size up the chances calculate the risks involved estimate our ability to deal with them and then make our plans with confidence.
Do not be afraid of defeat. You are never so near to victory as when defeated in a good cause.
It is defeat that turns bone to flint it is defeat that turns gristle to muscle it is defeat that makes men invincible.
Nobody can really guarantee the future. The best we can do is size up the chances calculate the risks involved estimate our ability to deal with them and make our plans with confidence.
Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.
In things pertaining to enthusiasm no man is sane who does not know how to be insane on proper occasions.
A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs jolted by every pebble in the road.
Some circumstantial evidence is very strong as when you find a trout in the milk.