“The action is best that secures the greatest happiness for the greatest number.”
William Dean Howells“I wish you to believe whatever you think is true, at any and every cost.”
William Dean Howells, Editha“Wisdom and goodness are twin-born, one heart must hold both sisters, never seen apart.”
William Dean Howells“The action is best that secures the greatest happiness for the greatest number.”
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“Some people can stay longer in an hour than others can in a week.”
William Dean Howells“Does it afflict you to find your books wearing out? I mean literally .. . the mortality of all inanimate things is terrible to me but that of books most of all.”
William Dean Howells“She had conquered, but she had also necessarily lost much. Perhaps what she had lost was not worth keeping; but at any rate she had lost it.”
William Dean Howells“How strange it (the earthquake) must all have seemed to them, here where they lived so safely always! They thought such a dreadful thing could happen to others, but not to them. That is the way!”
William Dean Howells, A Sleep and a Forgetting“Every one is expected to look out for himself here. I fancy that there would be very little rising if men were expected to rise for the sake of others, in America.”
William Dean Howells, A Traveler from Altruria“Those novels with old-fashioned heroes and heroines in them -- are ruinous!”
William Dean Howells, The Rise of Silas Lapham