O. Henry Quotes
If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.
In this world, full often, our joys are only the tender shadows which our sorrows cast.
The sail, the play of its pulse so like our own lives: so thin and yet so full of life, so noiseless when it labors hardest, so noisy and impatient when least effective.
Alas! how little does the memory of these human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the landscape!
Generally speaking, a howling wilderness does not howl: it is the imagination of the traveler that does the howling.
New York is a different country. Maybe it ought to have a separate government. Everybody thinks differently, they just don't know what the hell the rest of the United States is.
Not in the clamor of the crowded street, Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.
We can follow a steady upward course in a world of change without fear, welcoming opportunities
need is not demand. Effective economic demand requires not merely need but corresponding purchasing power.
No country can act wisely simultaneously in every part of the globe at every moment of time.
The hurricane complicates things in that what would have been purely a business decision becomes a decision of the heart.
The life of a man consists not in seeing visions and in dreaming dreams, but in active charity and in willing service.
However things may seem, no evil thing is success and no good thing is failure.
The love of our private friends is the only preparatory exercise for the love of all men.
I'm no romantic, surfing, California boy. I like reading, writing, philosophizing. Scheming. I've been doing some exploration of the inner space.
By nature and doctrines I am addicted to the habit of discovering choice places wherein to feed.
I had a microscopic eye for the blemish, for the grain of ugliness which to me constituted the sole beauty of the object.
No man likes to have his intelligence or good faith questioned, especially if he has doubts about it himself.
I have now disposed of all my property to my family. There is one thing more I wish I could give them, and that is the Christian religion.
Pride of opinion has been responsible for the downfall of more men on Wall Street than any other factor.
The deductive method is the mode of using knowledge, and the inductive method the mode of acquiring it.
The things that concern us during the day are going to influence what we experience during the night.
Just as we leave the effects of our work behind in results, we leave the effects of our interactions with people in their hearts, minds, and souls.
When a man fails to see the truth of certain generally accepted views, there is no law compelling him to provoke animosity by announcing his dissent.
Some folks rail against other folks, because other folks have what some folks would be glad of.
The most considerable difference I note among men is not in their readiness to fall into error, but in their readiness to acknowledge these inevitable lapses.
All conventional wisdom has an element of truth to it, but good design requires more than an element of truth - it requires an ensemble of correct assumptions and valid calculations.
Discipline in art is a fundamental struggle to understand oneself, as much as to understand what one is drawing.
The chief wonder of education is that it does not ruin everybody concerned in it, teachers and taught.
When widows exclaim loudly against second marriages, I would always lay a wager than the man, If not the wedding day, is absolutely fixed on.