William Dean Howells Quotes

“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.”

“He who sleeps in continual noise is wakened by silence.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“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.”