The action is best that secures the greatest happiness for the greatest number. – William Dean Howells
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
What the American public wants in the theater is a tragedy with a happy ending. – William Dean Howells
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
Tomorrow I shall be sixty-nine, but I do not seem to care. I did not start the affair, and I have not been consulted about it at any step. – William Dean Howells
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
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
You’ll find as you grow older that you weren’t born such a great while ago after all. The time shortens up. – William Dean Howells
The secret of the man who is universally interesting is that he is universally interested. – William Dean Howells
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
There will presently be no room in the world for things; it will be filled up with the advertisements of things. – William Dean Howells
The mortality of all inanimate things is terrible to me, but that of books most of all. – William Dean Howells
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
Wisdom and goodness are twin-born, one heart must hold both sisters, never seen apart. – William Dean Howells
It is the still, small voice that the soul heeds, not the deafening blasts of doom. – William Dean Howells
