Charles Dudley Warner Quotes (44 Quotes)

A cynic might suggest as the motto of modern life this simple legend -- 'Just as good as the real.'

There was never a nation great until it came to the knowledge that it had nowhere in the world to go for help.

The man who has planted a garden feels that he has done something for the good of the world.

Public opinion is stronger than the legislature, and nearly as strong as the ten commandments.

We are half ruined by conformity, but we should be wholly ruined without it.

It is fortunate that each generation does not comprehend its own ignorance. We are thus enabled to call our ancestors barbarous.

The wise man does not permit himself to set up even in his own mind any comparisons of his friends. His friendship is capable of going to extremes with many people, evoked as it is by many qualities.

The love of dirt is among the earliest of passions, as it is the latest. Mud-pies gratify one of our first and best instincts. So long as we are dirty, we are pure. Fondness for the ground comes back to a man after he has run the round of pleasure and business, eaten dirt, and sown wild oats, drifted about the world, and taken the wind of all its moods. The love of digging in the ground (or of looking on while he pays another to dig) is as sure to come back to him, as he is sure, at last, to go under the ground, and stay there.

How many wars have been caused by fits of indigestion, and how many more dynasties have been upset by the love of woman than by the hate of man.

Happy is said to be the family which can eat onions together. They are, for the time being, separate, from the world, and have a harmony of aspiration.

Mud-pies gratify one of our first and best instincts. So long as we are dirty, we are pure.

Whatever may be said about the power of the press, it is undeniable that it can set the entire public thinking and talking about any topic . . .

It is so much easier to forgive a failure than a success.

There is nothing that disgusts a man like getting beaten at chess by a woman.

Simplicity is making the journey of this life with just baggage enough.

I am convinced that the majority of people would be generous from selfish motives, if they had the opportunity.

The boy who expects every morning to open into a new world finds that today is like yesterday, but he believes tomorrow will be different.

A great artist can paint a great picture on a small canvas.

The principal value of a garden is not understood. It is not to give the possessors vegetables and fruit (that can be better and cheaper done by the market-gardeners), but to teach him patience and philosophy, and the higher virtues - hope deferred, and expectations blighted, leading directly to resignation, and sometimes to alienation.

Few people can resist doing what is universally expected of them. This invisible pressure is more difficult to stand against than individual tyranny.

Goodness comes out of people who bask in the sun, as it does out of a sweet apple roasted before the fire.

. . . representatives of society and of art graciously mingled, since it is discovered that it is easier to make art fashionable than to make fashion artistic.

The thing generally raised on city land is taxes.

There is no such thing as absolute value in this world. You can only estimate what a thing is worth to you.

Hoe while it is spring, and enjoy the best anticipations. It is not much matter if things do not turn out well.

Regrets are idle; yet history is one long regret. Everything might have turned out so differently.

No one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.

Lettuce is like conversation; it must be fresh and crisp, so sparkling that you scarcely notice the bitter in it.

People always overdo the matter when they attempt deception.

There is but one pleasure in life equal to that of being called on to make an after-dinner speech, and that is not being called on to make one.

The complex affair we call the world requires a great variety of people to keep it going.

The excellence of a gift lies in its appropriateness rather than in its value.

His experience at the publishers had taught him one important truth, and that is that a big subject does not make a big writer, that all that any mind can contribute to the general thought of the world in literature is what is in itself, and if there is nothing in himself it is vain for the writer to go far afield for a theme.

What a man needs in gardening is a cast-iron back, with a hinge in it.

Perhaps nobody ever accomplishes all that he feels lies in him to do; but nearly every one who tries his power touches the walls of his being.

No man but feels more of a man in the world if he have a bit of ground that he can call his own. However small it is on the surface, it is four thousand miles deep; and that is a very handsome property.

There isn't a wife in the world who has not taken the exact measure of her husband, weighed him and settled him in her own mind, and knows him as well as if she had ordered him after designs and specifications of her own.

To see both sides is indeed the requisite of a great lawyer, but to see the opposite side only in order to win, as in looking over an opponent's hand in a game of cards.

Politics makes strange bedfellows.

Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.

Hoeing in the garden on a bright, soft May day, when you are not obligated to, is nearly equal to the delight of going trouting.

A garden is an awful responsibility. You never know what you may be aiding to grow in it.

To own a bit of ground, to scratch it with a hoe, to plant seeds, and watch the renewal of life - this is the commonest delight of the race, the most satisfactory thing a man can do.

One of the best things in the world to be is a boy; it requires no experience, but needs some practice to be a good one.