The Virginian Quotes

“Forgive my asking you to use your mind. It is a thing which no novelist should expect of his reader...”
― Owen Wister, The Virginian

“When a man ain't got no ideas of his own, he'd ought to be kind o' careful who he borrows 'em from.”
― Owen Wister, The Virginian

“It was through the Declaration of Independence that we Americans acknowledged the eternal inequality of man. For by it we abolished a cut-and-dried aristocracy. We had seen little men artificially held up in high places, and great men artificially held down in low places, and our own justice-loving hearts abhorred this violence to human nature. Therefore, we decreed that every man should thenceforth have equal liberty to find his own level. By this very decree we acknowledged and gave freedom to true aristocracy, saying, "Let the best man win, whoever he is." Let the best man win! That is America's word. That is true democracy. And true democracy and true aristocracy are one and the same thing”
― Owen Wister, The Virginian

“Here in flesh and blood was a truth which I had long believed in words, but never met before. The creature we call a gentleman lies deep in the heart of thousands that are born without chance to master the outward graces of the type.”
― Owen Wister, The Virginian

“When a man is kind to dumb animals, I always say he has got some good in him.”
― Owen Wister, The Virginian

“I thought there should in truth be heavy damages for malpractice on human souls.”
― Owen Wister, The Virginian

“When you call me that, smile.”
― Owen Wister, The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains

“The cowboy has now gone to worlds invisible; the wind has blown away the white ashes of his campfires; but the empty sardine box lies rusting over the face of the Western earth.”
― Owen Wister, The Virginian

“But no earthly foot can step between a man and his destiny.”
― Owen Wister, The Virginian, a Horseman of the Plains

“I reckon some parsons have a right to tell you to be good. The bishop of this hyeh territory has a right. But I'll tell yu' this: a middlin' doctor is a pore thing, and a middlin' lawyer is a pore thing; but keep me from a middlin' man of God.”
― Owen Wister, The Virginian

“All America is divided into two classes - the quality and the equality. The latter will always recognize the former when mistaken for it.”
― Owen Wister, The Virginian

“For out of the eyes of every stranger looks either a friend or an enemy, waiting to be known.”
― Owen Wister, The Virginian

“I don't think I like you," said she.
"That's all square enough. You're goin' to love me before we get through”
― Owen Wister, The Virginian

“Ah, me," she sighed. "If marriage were as simple as love!”
― Owen Wister, The Virginian, a Horseman of the Plains

“Science! He [Dr. MacBride] doesn't know what Christianity is yet. I've entertained many guests, but none - The whole secret," broke off Judge Henry, "Lies in the way you treat people. As soon as you treat men as your brothers, they are ready to acknowledge you - if you deserve it - as their superior. That's the whole bottom of Christianity, and that's what our missionary will never know.”
― Owen Wister, The Virginian

“the letter means nothing until the spirit gives it life”
― Owen Wister, The Virginian

“she would watch him with eyes that were fuller of love than of understanding.”
― Owen Wister, The Virginian, a Horseman of the Plains

“Providence makes use of instruments I'd not touch with a ten-foot pole.”
― Owen Wister, The Virginian, a Horseman of the Plains

“When a man ain't got no ideas of his own," said Scipio, "he'd ought to be kind o' careful who he borrows 'em from.”
― Owen Wister, The Virginian, a Horseman of the Plains

“Often when I have camped here, it has made me want to become the ground, become the water, become the trees, mix with the whole thing. Not know myself from it. Never unmix again.”
― Owen Wister, The Virginian

“Who is he?"
"Nobody!" cried Molly, with indignation.
"Then you shouldn't answer so loud," said the great-aunt”
― Owen Wister, The Virginian

“He looked pleased. "I reckon," he said, "I couldn't be so good if I wasn't bad onced in a while”
― Owen Wister, The Virginian

“They're pretty near the color of your eyes."
"Never mind my eyes."
"Can't help it, ma'am. Not since South Fork”
― Owen Wister, The Virginian

“But if I had lived to be twenty-nine years old like I am, and with all my chances made no enemy, I'd feel myself a failure.”
― Owen Wister, The Virginian, a Horseman of the Plains

“In no company had I ever felt so much an outsider. Yet I liked the company, and wished that it would like me.”
― Owen Wister, The Virginian, A Horseman Of The Plains: By Owen Wister - Illustrated

“Many an act that man does is right or wrong according to the time and place which form, so to speak, its context; strip it of its surrounding circumstances, and you tear away its meaning. Gentlemen reformers, beware of this common practice of yours! Beware of calling an act evil on Tuesday because that same act was evil on Monday!”
― Owen Wister, The Virginian

“We all know what birds of a feather do. And it may be safely surmised that if a bird of any particular feather has been for a long while unable to see other birds of its kind, it will flock with them all the more assiduously when they happen to alight in its vicinity.”
― Owen Wister, The Virginian

“Has any botanist set down what the seed of love is? Has it anywhere been set down in how many ways this seed may be sown? In what various vessels of gossamer it can float across wide spaces? Or upon what different soils it can fall, and live unknown, and bide its time for blooming?”
― Owen Wister, The Virginian

“Stand on your laigs you polecat, and admit you're a liar!”
― Owen Wister, The Virginian A Horseman of the Plains

“The creature we call a GENTLEMAN lies deep in the hearts of thousands that are born without chance to master the outward graces of the type.”
― Owen Wister, The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains