O. Henry Quotes

Evolution continually innovates, but at each level it conserves the elements that are recombined to yield the innovations.

Pride defeats its own end, by bringing the man who seeks esteem and reverence into contempt.

Mr. Cooper, have you looked in the mirror lately and seen the state of your nose?

We are constantly invited to be who we are.

All things in the natural world symbolize God, yet none of them speak of Him but in broken and imperfect words.

There will never be a really free and enlightened state until the state comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived.

Sweep away the clutter of things that complicate our lives.

Don't put labels on people. See them as people who Christ died for.

The Christian never works toward victory, he always works FROM victory.

People of too much sentiment are like fountains, whose overflow keeps a disagreeable puddle about them.

Laughter is day, and sobriety is night; a smile is the twilight that hovers gently between both, more bewitching than either.

What a pity flowers can utter no sound!-A singing rose, a whispering violet, a murmuring honeysuckle ... oh, what a rare and exquisite miracle would these be!

The dog was created specially for children. He is a god of frolic.

March to the beat of your own drummer.

O how I laugh when I think of my vague indefinite riches. No run on my bank can drain it, for my wealth is not possession but enjoyment.

There is no such thing as white lies; a lie is as black as a coalpit, and twice as foul.

A grain of gold will gild a great surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom.

No one thing does human life more need than a kind consideration of the faults of others. Every one sins; everyone needs forbearance. Our own imperfections should teach us to be merciful.

Methinks that the moment my legs began to move, my thoughts began to flow.

To be a philosopher... is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically.

If you are idle, you are on the road to ruin; and there are few stopping-places upon it. It is rather a precipice than a road

This life is not for complaint, but for satisfaction.

The things that hurt us teach us.

A little library, growing every year, is an honorable part of a man’s history. It is a man’s duty to have books.

I never knew an early-rising, hard-working, prudent man, careful of his earnings, and strictly honest who complained of bad luck.

Difficulties are God's errands; and when we are sent upon them, we should esteem it a proof of God's confidence.

That was a judicious mother who said, "I obey my children for the first year of their lives, but ever after I expect them to obey me.

Every man who has ever been earnest to preserve his higher or poetic faculties in the best condition, has been particularly inclined to abstain from animal food

Day, like a weary pilgrim, had reached the western gate of heaven, and Evening stooped down to unloose the latchets of his sandal shoon.

Well I know the secret places, And the nests in hedge and tree; At what doors are friendly faces, In what hearts are thoughts of me.

The keeping of bees is like the direction of sunbeams.

Don't cross the bridge til you come to it.

In the long run men hit only what they aim at.

The bravest are the tenderest.

All the seasons run their race In this quiet resting-place; Peach, and apricot, and fig Here will ripen, and grow big; Here is store and overplus - More had not Alcinous!

The hero is commonly the simplest and obscurest of men.

Method is more important than strength, when you wish to control your enemies.

I see, but cannot reach, the height That lies forever in the light.

No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof.

If I should sell both my forenoons and afternoons to society, as most appear to do, I am sure, that, for me, there would be nothing left worth living for.

It is Lucifer, The son of mystery; And since God suffers him to be, He too, is God's minister, And labors for some good By us not understood.

Tomorrow is the mysterious, unknown guest.

Give me the poverty that enjoys true wealth.

The music of all creatures has to do with their loves, even of toads and frogs. Is it not the same with man?

I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper.

Gardening is civil and social, but it wants the vigor and freedom of the forest and the outlaw.

Being all fashioned of the self-same dust, let us be merciful as well as just

I fear that we are such gods or demigods only as fauns and satyrs, the divine allied to beasts, the creatures of appetite, and that, to some extent, our very life is our disgrace.

At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach, A fisherman stood aghast, To see the form of a maiden fair, Lashed close to a drifting mast.

There is only one way to be prepared for death: to be sated. In the soul, in the heart, in the spirit, in the flesh. To the brim.