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I wonder why we hate the past so.

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
Past
Wonder
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History

More quotes by William Dean Howells

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The conqueror is regarded with awe the wise man commands our respect but it is only the benevolent man that wins our affection.
William Dean Howells
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n artistic atmosphere does not create artists a literary atmosphere does not create literators poets and painters spring up where there was never a verse made or a picture seen. This suggests that God is no more idle now than He was at the beginning, but that He is still and forever shaping the human chaos into the instruments and means of beauty.
William Dean Howells
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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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What the American public wants in the theater is a tragedy with a happy ending.
William Dean Howells
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We are creatures of the moment we live from one little space to another, and only one interest at a time fills these.
William Dean Howells
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It is the still, small voice that the soul heeds, not the deafening blasts of doom.
William Dean Howells
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The wrecks of slavery are fast growing a fungus crop of sentiment.
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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If we like a man's dream, we call him a reformer if we don't like his dream, we call him a crank.
William Dean Howells
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The difficulty is to know conscience from self-interest.
William Dean Howells
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It is the curse of prosperity that it takes work away from us, and shuts that door to hope and health of spirit.
William Dean Howells
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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.
William Dean Howells
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The book which you read from a sense of duty, or because for any reason you must, does not commonly make friends with you.
William Dean Howells
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Lord, for the erring thought Not unto evil wrought: Lord, for the wicked will Betrayed, and baffled still: For the heart from itself kept, Our thanksgiving accept. For ignorant hopes that were Broken to our blind prayer: For pain, death, sorrow, sent Unto our chastisement: For all loss of seeming good, Quicken our gratitude.
William Dean Howells
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Some people stay longer in an hour than others can in a week.
William Dean Howells
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In Europe life is histrionic and dramatized, and in America, except when it is trying to be European, it is direct and sincere.
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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Why art thou but a nest of gloom While the bobolinks are singing?
William Dean Howells
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Primitive societies without religion have never been found.
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