Bret Harte

Never a lip is curved with pain that can't be kissed into smiles again.

The morning was bright and propitious. Before their departure, mass had been said in the chapel, and the protection of St. Ignatius invoked against all contingent evils, but especially against bears, which, like the fiery dragons of old, seemed to cherish unconquerable hostility to the Holy Church. ("The Legend Of Monte Del Diablo").

Never a tear bedims the eye that time and patience will not dry.

One big vice in a man is apt to keep out a great many smaller ones.

Never a tear bedims the eye That time and patience will not dry.

The only sure thing about luck is that it will change.

Which I wish to remark - And my language is plain - That for ways that are dark And for tricks that are vain The heathen Chinese is peculiar.

For, he (The Devil) observed, the issue of the great battle of Good and Evil had been otherwise settled, as he would presently show him. "It wants but a few moments of night," he continued, "and over this interval of twilight, as you know, I have been given complete control. Look to the West.("The Legend of Monte Del Diablo")

There was, I think, a prevailingimpression common to the provincial mind, that his misfortune wasthe result of the defective moral quality of his being a stranger.

If, of all words of tongue and pen,The saddest are, 'It might have been,'More sad are these we daily see:'It is, but hadn't ought to be.