Theodore Dreiser Quotes

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

Damals war der Ruf des Detektivs William A. Pinkerton und seines Auskunftsbüros sehr bedeutend. Der Mann war durch eine Reihe von Wechselfällen aus Armut zu hohem Ansehen in seinem sonderbaren und für manche Leute widerwärtigen Beruf emporgestiegen, aber für alle, die solche an sich unglücklichen Dienste benötigen, war seine wohlbekannte und patriotische Rolle im Bürgerkrieg und um Abraham Lincolns Person eine Empfehlung. Er oder vielmehr seine Organisation hatte diesen während der ganzen Dauer seiner stürmischen Amtszeit im Regierungspalast geschützt. Seine Firma hatte Niederlassungen in Philadelphia, Washington und New York, um nur die bedeutendsten Orte zu nennen.

Thus in life there is ever the intellectual and the emotional nature — the mind that reasons, and the mind that feels. Of one come the men of action — generals and statesmen; of the other, the poets and dreamers — artists all.

"You felt no sorrow? No shame? Then?" "Yes, shame, maybe. Maybe sorrow, too, a little. I knew it was terrible. I felt that it was, of course. But still — you see — " "Yes, I know. That Miss X. You wanted to get away." "Yes — but mostly I was frightened, and I didn't want to help her." "Yes! Yes! Tst! Tst! Tst! If she drowned you could go to that Miss X. You thought of that?" The Reverend McMillan's lips were tightly and sadly compressed. "Yes." "My son! My son! In your heart was murder then."

For what am I now?’ ‘But a moment since, I was whole and one who could find delight in all things that were given me to do; but now I am as one who is lost and knows not his way.

A clever companion — had she ever had one — would have warned her never to look a man in the eyes so steadily.

In the light of the world's attitude toward woman and her duties, the nature of Carrie's mental state deserves consideration. Actions such as hers are measured by an arbitrary scale. Society possesses a conventional standard whereby it judges all things. All men should be good, all women virtuous. Wherefore, villain, hast thou failed?

you could no more see him in the light that you do than you could rise out of that box and fly through those windows.

The clear proof of one overt deed was the cold breath needed to convert the lowering clouds of suspicion into a rain of wrath.

Now that Carrie had come, he was in a fair way to be blissful again.

Jennie went about her work, but the impression persisted; his name ran in her mind. Lester Kane. And he was from Cincinnati.

now. If any habits ever had time to fix upon her, they would have operated here. Habits are peculiar things. They will drive the really non-religious mind out of bed to say prayers that are only a custom and not a devotion. The victim of habit, when he has

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

Raw, glittering force, however, compounded of the cruel Machiavellianism of nature, if it is to be but Machiavellian, seems to exercise a profound attraction for the conventionally rooted. Your cautious citizen of average means, looking out through the eye of his dull world of seeming fact, is often the first to forgive or condone the grim butcheries of theory by which the strong rise.

He began to see as one sees a city with a wall about it. Men were posted at the gates. You could not get in. Those inside did not care to come out to see who you were. They were so merry inside there that all those outside were forgotten, and he was on the outside.