Theodore Dreiser Quotes

36 Sourced Quotes

Our civilization is still in the 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
In your rocking chair by your window shall you dream such happiness as you may never feel.

Theodore Dreiser
The city has its cunning wiles, no less than the infinitely smaller and more human tempter. There are large forces which allure with all the souffulness of expression possible in the most cultured human. The gleam of a thousand lights is often as effective as the persuasive light in a wooing and fascinating eye.

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

Theodore Dreiser
She had no desire for accuracy, no desire for precise information. Innate sensuousness rarely has. It basks in sunshine, bathes in color, dwells in a sense of the impressive and the gorgeous, and rests there. Accuracy is not necessary except in the case of aggressive, acquisitive natures, when it manifests itself in a desire to seize. True controlling sensuousness cannot be manifested in the most active dispositions, nor again in the most accurate.

Theodore Dreiser
It isn't myself that's important in this transaction apparently; the individual doesn't count much in the situation...all of us are more or less pawns. We're moved about like chessmen by circumstances over which we have no control.

Theodore Dreiser
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.

Theodore Dreiser
We who feel that justice is not being done have but one thing to do: that is fight, by argument, by example, by insistence on fair play wherever we have the power to do so. The rest is in the hands of the Lord, or nature, which swings, apparently, from one extreme to another.

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
Our civilisation 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
When a girl leaves her home at eighteen, she does one of two things. Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she rapidly assumes the cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes worse.

Theodore Dreiser