O. Henry Quotes

Politics is the gizzard of society full of gut and gravel.

Think you can think you can't either way you'll be right.

What a man thinks of himself that is what determines or rather indicates his fate.

Events circumstances etc. have their origin in ourselves. They spring from seeds which we have sown.

It is life near the bone where it is sweetest.

The meanest most contemptible kind of praise is that which first speaks well of a man and then qualifies it with a 'but'.

I pray on the principle that wine knocks the cork out of a bottle. There is an inward fermentation and there must be a vent.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly the true place for a just man is also a prison.

Read the best books first or you may not have a chance to read them at all.

Shall a man go and hang himself because he belongs to the race of pygmies and not be the biggest pygmy that he can?

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the roots.

That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.

Misfortunes occur only when a man is false.... Events circumstances etc. have their origin in ourselves. They spring from seeds which we have sown.

A door that seems to stand open must be of a man's size or it is not the door that providence means for him.

The question "Who ought to be boss" is like asking "Who ought to be tenor in the quartet?" Obviously the man who can sing tenor.

Victories that are cheap are cheap. Those only are worth having which come as the result of hard fighting.

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.

This life is not for complaint but for satisfaction.

Simplicity simplicity simplicity! I say let your affairs be as two or three and not a hundred or a thousand. ... Simplify simplify.

None love to speak so much when the mood of speaking comes as they who are naturally taciturn.

The strength of a man consists in finding out the way in which God is going and going in that way too.

I believe God is managing affairs and that He doesn't need any advice from me. With God in charge I believe everything will work out for the best in the end.

For many years I was self-appointed inspector of snowstorms and rain-storms and did my duty faithfully.

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavors to live the life which he has imaged he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.

Before everything else getting ready is the secret of success.

The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar instead of how little he can give for a dollar is bound to succeed.

All men are tempted. There is no man that lives that can't be broken down provided it is the right temptation put in the right spot.

City life - millions of people being lonesome together.

We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history we make today.

Do not look back on happiness or dream of it in the future. You are only sure of today do not let yourself be cheated out of it.

He is blessed over all mortals who loses no moment of the passing life.

I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do.

It takes two to speak the truth - one to speak and another to hear.

The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one often comes from a strong will and the other from a strong won't.

It is characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

Beware all enterprises that require new clothes.

We like that a sentence should read as if its author had he held a plough instead of a pen could have drawn a furrow deep and straight to the end.

As for style of writing if one has anything to say it drops from him simply and directly as a stone falls to the ground.

The youth gets together this material to build a bridge to the moon or perchance a palace or temple on earth and at length the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them.

Enter RUMOUR, painted full of ton

Rumour is a pipeBlown by surmises, jealousies, conjecturesAnd of so easy and so plain a stopThat the blunt monster with uncounted heads, The still-discordant wavering multitude, Can play upon it.

RUMOUR:"Upon my tongues continual slanders ride, The which in every language I pronounce, Stuffing the ears of men with false reports.

Business is never so healthy as when, like a chicken, it must do a certain amount of scratching around for what it gets.

What is human warfare but just this an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party.

As a teen, I heard the second Velvet Underground album, 'White Light/White Heat, ' and it was too much for my limited scope of appreciation. It was intense, but I didn't get it.

The smallest seed of faith is better than the largest fruit of happiness.

I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls.

We are always on the anvil by trials God is shaping us for higher things.

Be not simply good - be good for something.