Carolyn Wells Quotes & Sayings

Musicians rarely have a sense of humour, at least, about themselves. — Carolyn Wells

A guilty conscience is the mother of invention. — Carolyn Wells

One of the first principles of perseverance is to know when to stop persevering. — Carolyn Wells

Every dogma must have its day. — Carolyn Wells

How could advice be successful? If it turns out right, the adviser is ignored and the advisee takes all the credit. If it proves mistaken, the adviser receives all the blame. — Carolyn Wells

Take care of your common sense, and your dignity will take care of itsself — Carolyn Wells

Happiness is the ability to recognize it. — Carolyn Wells

What you can't afford to lose, you can't afford to buy — Carolyn Wells

A profit is not without honor save in Boston. — Carolyn Wells

On account of disastrous losses in Wall Street that morning, I had determined to kill myself. I'm not of much account, any way, and I was desperate. I knew Uncle Robert would give me no money to repay my stock losses, for he always thought speculation no better than any other sort of gambling - and it isn't. — Carolyn Wells

There are many ways of discarding [books]. You can give them to friends,
or enemies,
or to associations or to poor Southern libraries. But the surest way is to lend them. Then they never come back to bother you. — Carolyn Wells

The books we think we ought to read are poky, dull, and dry;
The books that we would like to read we are ashamed to buy;
The books that people talk about we never can recall;
And the books that people give us, oh, they're the worst of all. — Carolyn Wells

Insistent advice may develop into interference, and interference, someone has said, is the hind hoof of the devil. — Carolyn Wells

Where there's a will there's a detective story. — Carolyn Wells

Flirtation envies Love, and Love envies Flirtation. — Carolyn Wells

I view askance a book that remains undisturbed for a year. Oughtn't it to have a ticket of leave? I think I may safely say no bookin my library remains unopened a year at a time, except my own works and Tennyson's. — Carolyn Wells

Invitation is the sincerest flattery. — Carolyn Wells

She was enveloped from head to foot in a raccoon fur coat, with a jaunty hat of the same, trimmed only with a bright quill feather. — Carolyn Wells

By the way, remember that, all of you. On no account go up to the fourth floor. — Carolyn Wells

Reward is its own virtue. — Carolyn Wells

The subjective viewpoint is the only one to use regarding a library. Your true library is a collection of the books you want.You may have deplorably poor taste or bad judgment. Never mind. Correct those traits before you exchange your books. — Carolyn Wells

What is a magazine? A small body of Literature entirely surrounded by advertisements. — Carolyn Wells

I hate to do what everybody else is doing. Why, only last week, on Fifth Avenue and some cross streets, I noticed that every feminine citizen of these United States wore an artificial posy on her coat or gown. I came home and ripped off every one of the really lovely refrigerator blossoms that were sewn on my own bodices. — Carolyn Wells

When I feel that I'm going to write a detective story, I buy a five pound box of chocolates and a ream of paper. When the candy is all gone and the paper all used up, I know that the book is long enough. — Carolyn Wells

Advice is one of those things it is far more blessed to give than to receive. — Carolyn Wells

Adversity is neither friend nor foe. It is a common acquaintance that is desired less and rewarded most when embraced. — Carolyn Wells

As beauty is in the eye of the beholder, the ideal library is in the wish of its maker. — Carolyn Wells

I think, for the rest of my life, I shall refrain from looking up things. It is the most ravenous time-snatcher I know. You pull one book from the shelf, which carries a hint or a reference that sends you posthaste to another book, and that to successive others. It is incredible, the number of books you hopefully open and disappointedly close, only to take down another with the same result. — Carolyn Wells

A cynic is a man who looks at the world with a monocle in his mind's eye. — Carolyn Wells

One never knows what difference anything will make until the difference is made. — Carolyn Wells

Youth is a silly, vapid state, Old age with fears and ills is rife; This simple boon I beg of Fate - A thousand years of Middle Life. — Carolyn Wells

Actions lie louder than words. — Carolyn Wells

The wages of sin is alimony. — Carolyn Wells

In December people give no thought to the Past or the Future. They thing only of the Present. — Carolyn Wells

A blunder at the right moment is better than cleverness at the wrong time. — Carolyn Wells

You wouldn't believe On All Hallow Eve What lots of fun we can make, With apples to bob, And nuts on the hob, And a ring-and-thimble cake. — Carolyn Wells

I don't care very much for literary shrines and hauntsI knew a woman in London who boasted that she had lodgings from the windows of which she could throw a stone into Carlyle's yard. And when I said, "Why throw a stone into Carlyle's yard?" she looked at me as if I were an imbecile and changed the subject. — Carolyn Wells

Wall Street. - The abode of the Brokers and the Broke. — Carolyn Wells

The way to do some things is to do them. — Carolyn Wells

I don't believe the half I hear,
Nor the quarter of what I see!
But I have one faith, sublime and true,
That nothing can shake or slay;
Each spring I firmly believe anew
All the seed catalogues say! — Carolyn Wells

To take pride in a library kills it. Then, its motive power shifts over to the critical if admiring visitor, and apologies are necessary and acceptable and the fat is in the fire. — Carolyn Wells

It is the interest one takes in books that makes a library. And if a library have interest it is; if not, it isn't. — Carolyn Wells

A living gale is better than a dead calm. — Carolyn Wells

Society's the mother of convention. — Carolyn Wells

Contentment is the result of a limited imagination. — Carolyn Wells

Of two evils choose the prettier. — Carolyn Wells

To make a library It takes two volumes And a fire. Two volumes and a fire, And interest. The interest alone will do If logs are few. — Carolyn Wells

I have always hated biography, and more especially, autobiography. If biography, the writer invariably finds it necessary to plaster the subject with praises, flattery and adulation and to invest him with all the Christian graces. If autobiography, the same plan is followed, but the writer apologizes for it. — Carolyn Wells

At times there is nothing so unnatural as nature. — Carolyn Wells

We should live and learn; but by the time we've learned, it's too late to live. — Carolyn Wells

A fool and his money are soon married. — Carolyn Wells

I love the Christmas-tide, and yet,
I notice this, each year I live;
I always like the gifts I get,
But how I love the gifts I give! — Carolyn Wells

Advice ... is a habit-forming drug. You give a dear friend a bit of advice today, and next week you find yourself advising two or three friends, and the week after, a dozen, and the week following, crowds! — Carolyn Wells

A critic is a necessary evil, and criticism is an evil necessity. — Carolyn Wells

Ideals, standards, aspirations,
those are chameleon words, and take color from their speakers,
often false tints. A scholarly man of my acquaintance once told me that he traveled a thousand miles into the desert to get away from the word uplift, and it was the first word he heard after he reached his destination. — Carolyn Wells

And Your modest ambition is to be a good housekeeper, isn't it?"
"Well, yes, Papa; but not only that. I was thinking about it afterward by myself, and I think housekeeping is a the practical part of it - and that's a good big part too - but What I really want to be is a lovely, good, womanly woman, like Aunt Alice, you know. — Carolyn Wells

I'm just the same age I've always been. — Carolyn Wells

Almost before the big motor-car stopped, the girl sprang out. — Carolyn Wells

I am more fond of achieving than striving. My theories must prove to be facts or be discarded as worthless. My efforts must soon be crowned with success, or discontinued. — Carolyn Wells

What is the use of having an imagination if you can't make it work for you? — Carolyn Wells

'Tis blessed to bestow, and yet,
Could we bestow the gifts we get,
And keep the ones we give away,
How happy were our Christmas day! — Carolyn Wells

See my finger wet, see my finger dry, see my finger cut my throat if I tell a lie," said the girl, in a singsong tone, and with accompanying dramatic gestures of fearful histrionic fervour. — Carolyn Wells

All through the nineties I met people. Crowds of people. Met and met and met, until it seemed that people were born and hastily grew up, just to be met. — Carolyn Wells

Patriotism covers a multitude of sins. — Carolyn Wells

Since you have a choice between life and death, why not choose life and live. — Carolyn Wells