Bret Harte

“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.”

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

“We begin to die as soon as we are born, and the end is linked to the beginning.”

“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").”

“Man has the possibility of existence after death. But possibility is one thing and the realization of the possibility is quite a different thing.”

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

“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.”

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

“A bird in hand is a certainty. But a bird in the bush may sing.”