Charles Dudley Warner Quotes

Goodness comes out of people who bask in the sun, as it does out of a sweet apple roasted before the fire.

The excellence of a gift lies in its appropriateness rather than in its value

The stranger who receives the rare gift of human kindness holds its value in his heart forever.

To own a bit of ground, to scratch it with a hoe, to plant seeds, and watch the renewal of life - this is the commonest delight of the race, the most satisfactory thing a man can do.

A garden is an awful responsibility. You never know what you may be aiding to grow in it.

Lettuce is like conversation; it must be fresh and crisp, so sparkling that you scarcely notice the bitter in it.

Nothing is worth reading that does not require an alert mind.

There is no moment of delight in any pilgrimage like the beginning of it.

It is difficult to be emphatic when no one is emphatic on the other side.

The love of dirt is among the earliest of passions, as it is the latest. Mud-pies gratify one of our first and best instincts. So long as we are dirty, we are pure. Fondness for the ground comes back to a man after he has run the round of pleasure and business, eaten dirt, and sown wild oats, drifted about the world, and taken the wind of all its moods. The love of digging in the ground (or of looking on while he pays another to dig) is as sure to come back to him, as he is sure, at last, to go under the ground, and stay there.

People always overdo the matter when they attempt deception.

Simplicity is making the journey of this life with just baggage enough.

No man but feels more of a man in the world if he have a bit of ground that he can call his own. However small it is on the surface, it is four thousand miles deep; and that is a very handsome property.

To poke a wood fire is more solid enjoyment than almost anything else in the world.

There is no such thing as absolute value in this world. You can only estimate what a thing is worth to you.

Politics make strange bedfellows.

Perhaps nobody ever accomplishes all that he feels lies in him to do; but nearly every one who tries his power touches the walls of his being.

It is fortunate that each generation does not comprehend its own ignorance. We are thus enabled to call our ancestors barbarous.

There was never a nation that became great until it came to the knowledge that it had nowhere in the world to go for help.

A great artist can paint a great picture on a small canvas.

One of the best things in the world to be is a boy; it requires no experience, but needs some practice to be a good one

The boy who expects every morning to open into a new world finds that today is like yesterday, but he believes tomorrow will be different.

What a man needs in gardening is a cast-iron back, with a hinge in it.

A well known American writer said once that, while everybody talked about the weather, nobody seemed to do anything about it.

There are those who say that trees shade the garden too much, and interfere with the growth of the vegetables. There may be something in this:but when I go down the potato rows, the rays of the sun glancing upon my shining blade, the sweat pouring down my face, I should be grateful for shade.