Quote

All of us have to be prevaricators, hypocrites, and liars every day of our lives otherwise the social structure would fall into pieces the first day. We must act in one another's presence just as we must wear clothes. It is for the best

O. Henry

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

O. Henry
Age: 47 †
Born: 1862
Born: September 11
Died: 1910
Died: June 5
Journalist
Writer
Greensboro
North Carolina
William Sydney Porter
Olivier Henry
Oliver Henry
Firsts
Wear
First
Clothes
Must
Pieces
Hypocrites
Every
Lives
Hypocrite
Would
Fall
Liars
Social
Presence
Another
Otherwise
Best
Structure

More quotes by O. Henry

Image
Each of us, when our day's work is done, must seek our ideal, whether it be love or pinochle or lobster à la Newburg, or the sweet silence of the musty bookshelves.
O. Henry
Image
History is bright and fiction dull with homely men who have charmed women.
O. Henry
Image
The magi, as you know, were wise men wonderfully wise men who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents.
O. Henry
Image
Whenever he saw a dollar in another man's hands he took it as a personal grudge, if he couldn't take it any other way.
O. Henry
Image
Life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.
O. Henry
Image
Except in streetcars one should never be unnecessarily rude to a lady.
O. Henry
Image
When one loves one's Art no service seems too hard.
O. Henry
Image
There is one day that is ours. There is one day when all we Americans who are not self-made go back to the old home to eat saleratus biscuits and marvel how much nearer to the porch the old pump looks than it used to. Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American.
O. Henry
Image
Humans were denied the speech of animals. The only common ground of communication upon which dogs and men can get together is in fiction.
O. Henry
Image
It'll be a great place if they ever finish it.
O. Henry
Image
Bolivar cannot carry double
O. Henry
Image
There is this difference between the grief of youth and that of old age youth's burden is lightened by as much of it as another shares old age may give and give, but the sorrow remains the same.
O. Henry
Image
A story with a moral appended is like the bill of a mosquito. It bores you, and then injects a stinging drop to irritate your conscience.
O. Henry
Image
If there ever was an aviary overstocked with jays it is that Yaptown-on-the-Hudson, call New York. Cosmopolitan they call it, you bet. So's a piece of fly-paper. You listen close when they're buzzing and trying to pull their feet out of the sticky stuff. Little old New York's good enough for us--that's what they sing.
O. Henry
Image
In the Big City a man will disappear with the suddenness and completeness of the flame of a candle that is blown out.
O. Henry
Image
Bohemia is nothing more than the little country in which you do not live. If you try to obtain citizenship in it, at once the court and retinue pack the royal archives and treasure and move away beyond the hills.
O. Henry
Image
Those whom we first love we seldom marry
O. Henry
Image
The most notable thing about Time is that it is so purely relative. A large amount of reminiscence is, by common consent, conceded to the drowning man and it is not past belief that one may review an entire courtship while removing one's gloves.
O. Henry
Image
A good story is like a bitter pill, with the sugar coating inside of it.
O. Henry
Image
A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows.
O. Henry