Charles Dudley Warner (1829–1900) was an American essayist, novelist, and friend of Mark Twain, with whom he co-authored the novel The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today. Warner was born of Puritan descent in Plainfield, Massachusetts. From the ages of six to fourteen he lived in Charlemont, Massachusetts, the scene of the experiences pictured in his study of childhood, Being a Boy. He then moved to Cazenovia, New York, and in 1851 graduated from Hamilton College, Clinton, NY.
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The love of dirt is among the earliest of passions, as it is the latest. Mud-pies gratify one of our first and best instincts. So long as we are dirty, we are pure. Fondness for theground comes back to a man after he has run the round of pleasure and business, eaten dirt, and sown wild oats, drifted about the world, and taken the wind of all its moods. The love of digging in the ground (or of looking on while he pays another to dig is as sure to come back to him, as he is sure, at last, to go under the ground, and stay there.
—Charles Dudley Warner
Topics: Gardens
Regrets are idle; yet history is one long regret. Everything might have turned out so differently.
—Charles Dudley Warner
I am convinced that the majority of people would be generous from selfish motives, if they had the opportunity.
—Charles Dudley Warner
Simplicity is making the journey of this life with just baggage enough.
—Charles Dudley Warner
Topics: Simplicity
The wise man does not permit himself to set up even in his own mind any comparisons of his friends. His friendship is capable of going to extremes with many people, evoked as it is by many qualities.
—Charles Dudley Warner
Topics: Friendship, Friends and Friendship
No man but feels more of a man in the world if he have but a bit of ground that he can call his own. However small it is on the surface, it is four thousand miles deep; and that is a very handsome property.
—Charles Dudley Warner
Topics: Perspective
The thing generally raised on city land is taxes.
—Charles Dudley Warner
Topics: Taxes
The excellence of a gift lies in its appropriateness rather than in its value.
—Charles Dudley Warner
Topics: Gifts, Excellence, Giving
Perhaps nobody ever accomplishes all that he feels lies in him to do but nearly every one who tries his power touches the walls of his being occasionally, and learns about how far to attempt to spring.
—Charles Dudley Warner
Topics: Potential, Possibilities
Memory has the singular characteristic of recalling in a friend absent, as in a journey long past, only that which is agreeable.
—Charles Dudley Warner
Topics: Memory
To poke a wood fire is more solid enjoyment than almost anything else in the world.
—Charles Dudley Warner
Topics: Simplicity
If there was any petting to be done…he chose to do it. Often he would sit looking at me, and then, moved by a delicate affection, come and pull at my coat and sleeve until he could touch my face with his nose, and then go away contented.
—Charles Dudley Warner
Topics: Dogs
Did a woman ever love who would not give all the years of tasteless serenity for one year, for one month, for one day of uncalculating delirium of love poured out upon the man who returned it.
—Charles Dudley Warner
Topics: Love
Public opinion is stronger than the legislature, and nearly as strong as the ten commandments.
—Charles Dudley Warner
Lettuce is like conversation: it must be fresh and crisp, and so sparkling that you scarcely notice the bitter in it.
—Charles Dudley Warner
Topics: Conversation
The boy who expects every morning to open into a new world finds that today is like yesterday, but he believes tomorrow will be different.
—Charles Dudley Warner
Topics: Expectation
Hoeing in the garden on a bright, soft May day, when you are not obligated to, is nearly equal to the delight of going trouting.
—Charles Dudley Warner
Topics: Gardening
What a man needs in gardening is a cast-iron back, with a hinge in it.
—Charles Dudley Warner
Topics: Gardening, Nature
It is only fools who keep straining at high C all their lives.
—Charles Dudley Warner
Topics: Awareness, Realization, Realistic Expectations, Acceptance
There is no such thing as absolute value in this world. You can only estimate what a thing is worth to you.
—Charles Dudley Warner
Topics: Values
We are half ruined by conformity, but we should be wholly ruined without it.
—Charles Dudley Warner
One of the best things in the world to be is a boy; it requires no experience, but needs some practice to be a good one.
—Charles Dudley Warner
To own a bit of ground, to scratch it with a hoe,
to plant seeds and watch their renewal of life –
this is the commonest delight of the race,
the most satisfactory thing a man can do.
—Charles Dudley Warner
Topics: Farming
Barring some piece of luck I have seen but few men get rich rapidly except by means that would make them writhe to have known in public.
—Charles Dudley Warner
Topics: Wealth
The most popular persons are those who take the world as it is, who find the least fault.
—Charles Dudley Warner
Topics: Acceptance
Happy is said to be the family which can eat onions together. They are, for the time being, separate, from the world, and have a harmony of aspiration.
—Charles Dudley Warner
Topics: Aspirations
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