Quote

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.

William Dean Howells

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William Dean Howells
Age: 83 †
Born: 1837
Born: March 1
Died: 1920
Died: May 11
Author
Biographer
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Playwright
Science Fiction Writer
Belmont County
Ohio
William Howells
Greatness
Things
Truth
Standards
Remember
Trouble
Doe
Beauty
Come
Working
Even
Faithful
Trying
Knowledge
Remembered
Work
Natural
Ideals
Long
Keep

More quotes by William Dean Howells

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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.
William Dean Howells
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How is it the great pieces of good luck fall to us?
William Dean Howells
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He who sleeps in continual noise is wakened by silence.
William Dean Howells
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If ever the public was betrayed by its press, it's ours.
William Dean Howells
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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.
William Dean Howells
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There will presently be no room in the world for things it will be filled up with the advertisements of things.
William Dean Howells
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The secret of the man who is universally interesting is that he is universally interested.
William Dean Howells
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Primitive societies without religion have never been found.
William Dean Howells
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If we like a man's dream, we call him a reformer if we don't like his dream, we call him a crank.
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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.
William Dean Howells
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Is it worth while to observe that there are no Venetian blinds in Venice?
William Dean Howells
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See how today's achievement is only tomorrow's confusionSee how possession always cheapens the thing that was precious.
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What the American public wants in the theater is a tragedy with a happy ending.
William Dean Howells
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Why art thou but a nest of gloom While the bobolinks are singing?
William Dean Howells
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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.
William Dean Howells
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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.
William Dean Howells
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Inequality is as dear to the American heart as liberty itself.
William Dean Howells
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The difficulty is to know conscience from self-interest.
William Dean Howells
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Preach the blessings of our deeply incorporated civilization by the mouths of our eight-inch guns.
William Dean Howells
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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.
William Dean Howells