William Dean Howells Quotes

33 quotes in 489 categories

• A man never sees all that his mother has been to him until it's too late to let her know that he sees it.
• It is the curse of prosperity that it takes work away from us, and shuts that door to hope and health of spirit.
• Some people stay longer in an hour than others can in a week.
• He who sleeps in continual noise is wakened by silence.
• Inequality is as dear to the American heart as liberty itself.
• Do not trouble yourselves about standards or ideals; but try to be faithful and natural: remember that there is no greatness, no beauty, which does…
• I wonder why we hate the past so.
• The book which you read from a sense of duty, or because for any reason you must, does not commonly make friends with you.
• It's a curious thing, this thing we call civilization...we think it is an affair of epochs, and nations. It's really an affair of individuals. One…
• In Europe life is histrionic and dramatized, and in America, except when it is trying to be European, it is direct and sincere.
• How is it the great pieces of good luck fall to us?
• Is it worth while to observe that there are no Venetian blinds in Venice?
• It is the still, small voice that the soul heeds, not the deafening blasts of doom.
• Primitive societies without religion have never been found.
• We are creatures of the moment; we live from one little space to another, and only one interest at a time fills these.
• I know, indeed, of nothing more subtly satisfying and cheering than a knowledge of the real good will and appreciation of others. Such happiness does…
• Wisdom and goodness are twin-born, one heart must hold both sisters, never seen apart.
• What the American public wants in the theater is a tragedy with a happy ending.
• There will presently be no room in the world for things; it will be filled up with the advertisements of things.
• The mortality of all inanimate things is terrible to me, but that of books most of all.

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