William Dean Howells famous quotes

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

#Voice #Soul #Blast

The secret of a man who is universally interesting is that he is universally interested.
-- William Dean Howells

#Men #Interesting #Secret

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

#Birthday #Time #Born

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

#Dream #Men #Crank

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.
-- William Dean Howells

#Gratitude #Pain #Prayer

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.
-- William Dean Howells

#Country #Brother #Thinking

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

#Europe #America #Trying

How is it the great pieces of good luck fall to us?
-- William Dean Howells

#Fall #Good Luck #Luck

Is it worth while to observe that there are no Venetian blinds in Venice?
-- William Dean Howells

#Venice

The book which you read from a sense of duty, or because for any reason you must, does not commonly make friends with you.
-- William Dean Howells

#Book #Doe #Reason

I wonder why we hate the past so.
-- William Dean Howells

#Hate #Past #History

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.
-- William Dean Howells

#Truth #Greatness #Long

Inequality is as dear to the American heart as liberty itself.
-- William Dean Howells

#Heart #Liberty #Inequality

Some people stay longer in an hour than others can in a week.
-- William Dean Howells

#Change #Sarcastic #People

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.
-- William Dean Howells

#Giving #Water #Cups

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.
-- William Dean Howells

#War #Degrees #Doe

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.
-- William Dean Howells

#Long #Community #Suffering

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.
-- William Dean Howells

#Running #Tired #Science

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?
-- William Dean Howells

#Art #Apples #Tree

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.
-- William Dean Howells

#Heart #Evil #Wicked

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

#Confusion #Achievement #Today

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.
-- William Dean Howells

#Spring #Mean #Artist

The wrecks of slavery are fast growing a fungus crop of sentiment.
-- William Dean Howells

#Slavery #Wrecks #Growing

Why art thou but a nest of gloom While the bobolinks are singing?
-- William Dean Howells

#Art #Singing #Nests

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

#Book #Mortality #Terrible

The difficulty is to know conscience from self-interest.
-- William Dean Howells

#Self #Fame #Interest

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.
-- William Dean Howells

#Mom #Mother #Men

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

#Hope #Doors #Expectations

He who sleeps in continual noise is wakened by silence.
-- William Dean Howells

#Inspirational #Sleep #Silence

Primitive societies without religion have never been found.
-- William Dean Howells

#Found #Primitive

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

#Space #Live In The Moment #Littles

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.
-- William Dean Howells

#Appreciation #Cheer #Real

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

#Sister #Heart #Twins

What the American public wants in the theater is a tragedy with a happy ending.
-- William Dean Howells

#Tragedy #Want #Happy Endings

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

#Rooms #World #Advertising

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

#Wise #Winning #Men