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

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
Achievement
Tomorrow
Today
Thing
Cheapens
Always
Precious
Confusion
Possession

More quotes by 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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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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Out of the fragrant heart of bloom, The bobolinks are singing Out of the fragrant heart of bloom The apple-tree whispers to the room, Why art thou but a nest of gloom While the bobolinks are singing?
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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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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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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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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It is the still, small voice that the soul heeds, not the deafening blasts of doom.
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 mortality of all inanimate things is terrible to me, but that of books most of all.
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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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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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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Primitive societies without religion have never been found.
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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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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If ever the public was betrayed by its press, it's ours.
William Dean Howells
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Wisdom and goodness are twin-born, one heart must hold both sisters, never seen apart.
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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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