William Dean Howells Quotes

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

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

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

He who sleeps in continual noise is wakened by silence.

The difficulty is to know conscience from self-interest.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Primitive societies without religion have never been found.

People naturally despise a dependant.

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.

By beauty of course I mean truth, for the one involves the other; it is only the false in art which is ugly, and it is only the ugly that is universal.

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

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

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

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.

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

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