Bret Harte
17 quotes
Biography
"Howbeit, though no scholar, I am not one of those who misuse the English speech, and, being foolishly led by the hasty custom of scriveners and printers to write the letters "T" and "H" joined together, which resembleth a "Y," do incontinently jump to the conclusion the THE is pronounced "Ye,"--the like of which I never heard in all England."
"Later, when we were forced to accept the fact that finding gold was really the primary object of a gold-mining company, we still remained there"
"And then, for an old man like me, it's not exactly right, This kind o' playing soldier with no enemy in sight."
"And he says that the mountains are fairer For once being held in your thought;"
"Don't be too quick To break bad habits: better stick, Like the Mission folk, to your arsenic."
"There is peace in the swamp, though the quiet is Death,"
"Each lost day has its patron saint!"
"Virtue always meets reward, But quicker when it wears a sword;"
"Never a tear bedims the eye that time and patience will not dry."
"Never a lip is curved with pain that can't be kissed into smiles again."
"The morning was bright and propitious. Before their departure, mass had been said in the chapel, and the protection of St. Ignatius invoked against all contingent evils, but especially against bears, which, like the fiery dragons of old, seemed to cherish unconquerable hostility to the Holy Church. ("The Legend Of Monte Del Diablo")."
"The only sure thing about luck is that it will change."
"If, of all words of tongue and pen,The saddest are, 'It might have been,'More sad are these we daily see:'It is, but hadn't ought to be."
"There was, I think, a prevailingimpression common to the provincial mind, that his misfortune wasthe result of the defective moral quality of his being a stranger."
"For, he (The Devil) observed, the issue of the great battle of Good and Evil had been otherwise settled, as he would presently show him. "It wants but a few moments of night," he continued, "and over this interval of twilight, as you know, I have been given complete control. Look to the West.("The Legend of Monte Del Diablo")"
"Which I wish to remark - And my language is plain - That for ways that are dark And for tricks that are vain The heathen Chinese is peculiar."
"One big vice in a man is apt to keep out a great many smaller ones."