A man, a real man, must never be an agent, a tool, or a gambler- acting for himself or for others- he must employ such. A real man- a financier- was never a tool. He used tools. He created. He led.
--Theodore Dreiser
A thought will color a world for us.
--Theodore Dreiser
Art is the stored honey of the human soul, gathered on wings of misery and travail.
--Theodore Dreiser
Assure a man that he has a soul and then frighten him with old wives' tales as to what is to become of him afterward, and you have hooked a fish, a mental slave.
--Theodore Dreiser
Every person according to his light... You must help the world express itself. Use will make your powers endure...
--Theodore Dreiser
I acknowledge the Furies. I believe in them. I have heard the disastrous beating of their wings.
--Theodore Dreiser
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.
--Theodore Dreiser
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 circumstance.
--Theodore Dreiser
In order to have wisdom we must have ignorance.
--Theodore Dreiser
Let no one underestimate the need of pity. We live in a stony universe whose hard, brilliant forces rage fiercely.
--Theodore Dreiser
Life is made for the strong. There is no mercy in it for the weak- none... Such is the tragedy of desire.
--Theodore Dreiser
Love is the only thing you can really give in all this world. When you give love, you give everything.
--Theodore Dreiser
Nothing is proved, all is permitted.
--Theodore Dreiser
Only in rare instances and with rare individuals does there seem to be any guiding light from within.
--Theodore Dreiser
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.
--Theodore Dreiser
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.
--Theodore Dreiser
When the distraction of the tongue is removed, the heart listens.
--Theodore Dreiser
Words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean. Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes.
--Theodore Dreiser
Found 18 occurence(s) in 52,551 quotation(s).