John Greenleaf Whittier quotes

" For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: It might have been! " # Regret # Writers and Writing # Love Ended

" Peace hath higher tests of manhood than battle ever knew. " # Peace # Men # Battles

" Here Greek and Roman find themselves alive along these crowded shelves; and Shakespeare treads again his stage, and Chaucer paints anew his age. " # Libraries # Age and Aging # Wisdom

" The saddest thing of word or pen, To know the things that might have been. " # Writers and Writing # Love Ended # Words

" Speak out in acts; the time for words has passed, and only deeds will suffice. " # Action # Time and Time Management # Words

" Through this broad street, restless ever, ebbs and flows a human tide, wave on wave a living river; wealth and fashion side by side; Toiler, idler, slave and master, in the same quick current glide. " # Cities and City Life # Fashion # Life and Living

" "And we'll call you... hmmm. Pudge." "Huh?" "Pudge," the Colonel said. "Because you're skinny. It's called irony, Pudge. Heard of it? Now, let's go get some cigarettes and start this year off right." " # Politics # Smoking # Worry

" If people were rain, I was a drizzle and she was a hurricane. " # Rain

" Y'all smoke to enjoy it, I smoke to die. " # Smoking # Death and Dying # Enjoyment

" Here's what's not beautiful about it: from here, you can't see the rust or the cracked paint or whatever, but you can tell what the place really is. You see how fake it all is. it's not even hard enough to be made out of plastic. It's a paper town. I mean look at it, Q: look at all those cul-de-sacs, those streets that turn in on themselves, all the houses that were built to fall apart. All those paper people living in their paper houses, burning the future to stay warm. All the paper kids drinking beer some bum bought for them at the paper convenience store. Everyone demented with the mania of owning things. All the things paper-thin and paper-frail. And all the people, too. I've lived here for eighteen years and I have never once in my life come across anyone who cares about anything that matters. " # Committees and Meetings # Alcohol and Alcoholism # Age and Aging