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A story with a moral appended is like the bill of a mosquito. It bores you, and then injects a stinging drop to irritate your conscience.

— O. Henry Strictly Business (1910)

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More quotes by O. Henry

What is the world at its best but a little round field of the moving pictures with two walking together in it?

History is bright and fiction dull with homely men who have charmed women.

Roads of Destiny (1909)

It ain't the roads we take; it's what's inside of us that makes us turn out the way we do.

Whirligigs (1910)

A burglar who respects his art always takes his time before taking anything else.

Perhaps there is no happiness in life so perfect as the martyr's.

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Men accept servility in order to acquire wealth; as if they could acquire anything of their own when they cannot even assert that they belong to themselves.

Étienne de La Boétie Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (1548)

The confusion of marriage with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other single error.

George Bernard Shaw Man and Superman (1903)

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

C. S. Lewis God in the Dock (1970)

Affectation hides three times as many virtues as charity does sins.

Horace Mann Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann (1867)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: O. Henry (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.