Quotes from Theodore Dreiser

The strong man wants to be allowed to DO; the little man wants to stop him.

The true meaning of money yet remains to be popularly explained and comprehended.

I believe in the compelling power of love. I do not understand it. I believe it to be the most fragrant blossom of all this thorny existence.

It is a sad thing to want for happiness, but it is a terrible thing to see another groping about blindly for it, when it is almost within the grasp.

The most futile thing in this world is any attempt, perhaps, at exact definition of character. All individuals are a bundle of contradictions - none more so than the most capable.

If I were personally to define religion, I would say that it is a bandage that man has invented to protect a soul made bloody by circustance.

Life is made for the strong. There is no mercy in it for the weak– none...Such is the tragedy of desire.

Nothing is proved, all is permitted.

Our civilization is still in a middle stage, scarcely beast, in that it is no longer wholly guided by instinct; scarcely human, in that it is not yet wholly guided by reason.

Let no one underestimate the need of pity. We live in a stony universe whose hard, brilliant forces rage fiercely.

Art is the stored honey of the human soul, gathered on wings of misery and travail.

Words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean. Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes.

Love is the only thing you can really give in all this world. When you give love, you give everything.

I believe in the compelling power of love.

To the untraveled, territory other than their own familiar heath is invariably fascinating. Next to love it is the one thing that solaces and delights.

You walk into a room, see a woman, and something happens. It's chemical. What are you going to do about it?

Remember, love is all a woman has to give, but it is the only thing which God permits us to carry beyond the grave.

A real flame of love is a subtle thing. It burns as a will-o'-the-wisp, dancing onward to fairy lands of delight. It roars as a furnace. Too often jealousy is the quality upon which it feeds.

She merely beamed a fatty beam. She was almost ponderous, and pink, with a tendency to a double chin.

Who were these people with money, and what had they done that they should enjoy so much luxury, where others as good seemingly as themselves had nothing? And wherein did these latter differ so greatly from the successful?

When the distraction of the tongue is removed, the heart listens.

When waters engulf us we reach for a star.

A half-equipped little knight she was, venturing to reconnoiter the mysterious city and dreaming wild dreams of some vague, far-off supremacy, which should make it prey and subject - the proper penitent, groveling at a woman's slipper.

I was a moral coward, and he was not losing his life and desires through fear—which the majority of us do.