William Dean Howells Quotes

William Dean Howells writes sly, consoling thoughts on society and time, reminding us how fleeting achievements can be.

42 quotes

1. We live, but a world has passed away With the years that perished to make us men.

2. Lord, for the erring thought Not into evil wrought: Lord, for the wicked will Betrayed and baffled still: For the heart from itself kept, Our thanksgiving accept.

3. And before you know me gone Eternity and I are one.

4. Her mouth is a honey-blossom, No doubt, as the poet sings; But within her lips, the petals, Lurks a cruel bee that stings.

5. He who sleeps in continual noise is wakened by silence.

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

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

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

9. I am not sorry for having wrought in common, crude material so much; that is the right American stuff; and perhaps hereafter, when my din is done, if anyone is curious to know what that noise was, it will be found to have proceeded from a small insect which was scraping about on the surface of our life and trying to get into its meaning for the sake of the other insects larger or smaller. That is, such has been my unconscious work; consciously, I was always, as I still am, trying to fashion a piece of literature out of the life next at hand.

10. Clemens was sole, incomparable, the Lincoln of our literature.

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

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

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

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

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

16. 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.

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

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

19. Is it worth while to observe that there are no Venetian blinds in Venice?

20. 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.

21. 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.

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

23. If ever the public was betrayed by its press, it's ours.

24. 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.

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

26. Primitive societies without religion have never been found.

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

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

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

30. 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.

31. 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.

32. 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.

33. 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.

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

35. 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?

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

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

38. 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.

39. The difficulty is to know conscience from self-interest.

40. 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.

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

42. 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.