William Dean Howells's Quotes

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

He who sleeps in continual noise is wakened by silence.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

The action is best that secures the greatest happiness for the greatest number.

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

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.

Tomorrow I shall be sixty-nine, but I do not seem to care. I did not start the affair, and I have not been consulted about it at any step.

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.

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