You can't appreciate home till you've left it, money till it's spent, your wife till she's joined a women's club, nor Old Glory till you see it hanging on a broomstick on the shanty of a consul in a foreign town.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- People often fail to value things until they lose them or see them degraded.
- In plain terms
- You only appreciate things like home or flag after you lose or see them ruined.
- What can you take from it?
- Value what you have before it is gone.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What do you take for granted?
- How does distance change value?
Another view
Some things should be valued regardless of distance.
More from O. Henry
History is bright and fiction dull with homely men who have charmed women.
Permalink to quote #25 She plucked from my lapel the invisible strand of lint (the universal act of woman to proclaim ownership).
Permalink to quote #27 If ever there was an aviary overstocked with jays it is that Yaptown-on-the-Hudson, called New York.
Permalink to quote #24
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