Best 47 quotes of William Dean Howells on MyQuotes

A friend knows how to allow for mere quantity in your talk, and only replies to the quality.

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.

Christ and the life of Christ is at this moment inspiring the literature of the world as never before, and raising it up a witness against waste and want and war. It may confess Him, as in Tolstoi's work it does, or it may deny Him, but it cannot exclude Him; and in the degree that it ignores His spirit, modern literature is artistically inferior. In other words, all good literature is now Christmas literature.

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 not come from truth to your own knowledge of things; and keep on working, even if your work is not long remembered.

Each one of us must suffer long to himself before he can learn that he is but one in a great community of wretchedness which has been pitilessly repeating itself from the foundation of the world.

He who sleeps in continual noise is wakened by silence.

How is it the great pieces of good luck fall to us?

If we like a man's dream, we call him a reformer; if we don't like his dream, we call him a crank.

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 not come with money, nor does it flow from fine physical state. It cannot be brought. But it is the keenest joy, after all; and the toiler's truest and best reward.

Inequality is as dear to the American heart as liberty itself.

In Europe life is histrionic and dramatized, and in America, except when it is trying to be European, it is direct and sincere.

It is the curse of prosperity that it takes work away from us, and shuts that door to hope and health of spirit.

It is the still, small voice that the soul heeds, not the deafening blasts of doom.

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 brother will be civilized and the other a barbarian...All civilization comes through literature now, especially in our country. A Greek got his civilization by talking and looking, and in some measure a Parisian may still do it. But we, who live remote from history and monuments, we must read or we must barbarise.

I wonder why we hate the past so.

Lord, for the erring thoughtNot into evil wrought:Lord, for the wicked willBetrayed and baffled still:For the heart from itself kept,Our thanksgiving accept.

Lord, for the erring thought Not unto evil wrought: Lord, for the wicked will Betrayed, and baffled still: For the heart from itself kept, Our thanksgiving accept. For ignorant hopes that were Broken to our blind prayer: For pain, death, sorrow, sent Unto our chastisement: For all loss of seeming good, Quicken our gratitude.

n artistic atmosphere does not create artists a literary atmosphere does not create literators; poets and painters spring up where there was never a verse made or a picture seen. This suggests that God is no more idle now than He was at the beginning, but that He is still and forever shaping the human chaos into the instruments and means of beauty.

Out of the fragrant heart of bloom, The bobolinks are singing; Out of the fragrant heart of bloom The apple-tree whispers to the room, "Why art thou but a nest of gloom While the bobolinks are singing?

People naturally despise a dependant.

Preach the blessings of our deeply incorporated civilization by the mouths of our eight-inch guns.

See how today's achievement is only tomorrow's confusion;See how possession always cheapens the thing that was precious.

Some people stay longer in an hour than others can in a week.

The conqueror is regarded with awe; the wise man commands our respect; but it is only the benevolent man that wins our affection.

The difficulty is to know conscience from self-interest.

The disposition to give a cup of cold water to a disciple is a far nobler property than the finest intellect. Satan has a fine intellect, but not the image of God.

The mortality of all inanimate things is terrible to me, but that of books most of all.

There will presently be no room in the world for things; it will be filled up with the advertisements of things.

The secret of the man who is universally interesting is that he is universally interested.

The swelling and towering omnibuses, the huge trucks and wagons and carriages, the impetuous hansoms and the more sobered four-wheelers, the pony-carts, donkey-carts, hand-carts, and bicycles which fearlessly find their way amidst the turmoil, with foot-passengers winding in and out, and covering the sidewalks with their multitude, give the effect of a single monstrous organism, which writhes swiftly along the channel where it had run in the figure of a flood till you were tired of that metaphor. You are now a molecule of that vast organism.

The wars come and go in blood and tears; but whether they are bad wars, or what are comically called good wars, they are of one effect in death and sorrow.

The wrecks of slavery are fast growing a fungus crop of sentiment.

We are creatures of the moment; we live from one little space to another, and only one interest at a time fills these.

What the American public wants in the theater is a tragedy with a happy ending.

Why art thou but a nest of gloom While the bobolinks are singing?

Wisdom and goodness are twin-born, one heart must hold both sisters, never seen apart.

You'll find as you grow older that you weren't born such a great while ago after all. The time shortens up.

Every one is expected to look out for himself here. I fancy that there would be very little rising if men were expected to rise for the sake of others, in America.

How strange it (the earthquake) must all have seemed to them, here where they lived so safely always! They thought such a dreadful thing could happen to others, but not to them. That is the way!

I am yours, for time and eternity--time and eternity.

...I dare say if you'd asked him plumply what he meant in regard to the young lady, he would have told you - if he knew.' 'Why, don't you think he does know, Bromfield?' 'I'm not at all sure he does. You women think that because a young man dangles after a girl, or girls, he's attached to them. It doesn't at all follow. He dangles because he must, and doesn't know what to do with his time, and because they seem to like it. I dare say that Tom has dangled a good deal in this instance because there was nobody else in town.

I haven't done anything--yet.

I wish you to believe whatever you think is true, at any and every cost.

She had conquered, but she had also necessarily lost much. Perhaps what she had lost was not worth keeping; but at any rate she had lost it.

She liked the words; they satisfied her famine for phrases.

Those novels with old-fashioned heroes and heroines in them -- are ruinous!

Yes, there's sense in that. But the suddenly rich are on a level with any of us nowadays. Money buys position at once. I don't say that it isn't all right. The world generally knows what it's about, and knows how to drive a bargain. I dare say that it makes the new rich pay too much. But there's no doubt but money is to the fore now. It is the romance, the poetry of our age. It's the thing that chiefly strikes the imagination. The Englishmen who come here are more curious about the great new millionaires than about anyone else, and they respect them more. It's all very well. I don't complain of it.