Austin O’Malley (1858–1932) was an American aphorist, ophthalmologist, and pathologist. He was the author of the book of aphorisms Keystones of Thought (1914.)
Born in Pittston, Pennsylvania, O’Malley entered Fordham University at age 14 and later studied philosophy and languages at the Gregorian University in Rome. After shifting to medicine and studying at Georgetown and the University of Berlin, he returned to America as a bacteriologist and pathologist. He championed the use of the newly-discovered diphtheria antitoxin serum.
O’Malley served as a professor of English literature at the University of Notre Dame 1895–1902 and became a reputed lecturer on Dante’s poetry. Following a short period of ill health, he became an ophthalmologist specializing in diseases of the eye at Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia.
O’Malley wrote on literary and medical subjects; his works include Thoughts of a Recluse (1898,) Essays in Pastoral Medicine (1906,) The Cure of Alcoholism (1913,) and Ethics of Medical Homicide and Mutilation (1920.)
O’Malley was a brother of the playwright and writer Frank Ward O’Malley.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Austin O’Malley
One of the most important truths in the world is that there is worth enough in any rascal to cost the spilling of the Precious Blood.
—Austin O’Malley
An agnostic is a street faker that shuts his good eyes and holds out the placard, ‘I am blind’.
—Austin O’Malley
If you keep your mouth shut you will never put your foot in it.
—Austin O’Malley
Topics: Silence
Happiness is the harvest of a quiet eye.
—Austin O’Malley
Topics: Happiness
Those that say they despise riches are saints or liars.
—Austin O’Malley
There is as close a connection between youth and faith as between age and compromise.
—Austin O’Malley
Topics: Youth
The novel you like is like you.
—Austin O’Malley
Reason clears and plants the wilderness of the imagination to harvest the wheat of art.
—Austin O’Malley
If you snub Conscience a few times she will cut your acquaintance.
—Austin O’Malley
You cannot weld cake-dough to cast iron, nor a girl to an old man.
—Austin O’Malley
Topics: Marriage
If a man is a rascal do not blame him, but abuse his great grandfather—that is ‘scientific’ and it annoys no one.
—Austin O’Malley
The smaller the head, the bigger the dream.
—Austin O’Malley
Topics: Dreams
The monk that invented gunpowder did as much to stop war as did all the sermons of his brethren.
—Austin O’Malley
Topics: War
If you intend to use a horse a whole day and a love for a lifetime, keep the reins taut in the morning.
—Austin O’Malley
Topics: Love
You cannot chase a dollar and an ideal at the same time.
—Austin O’Malley
Busy souls have no time to be busybodies.
—Austin O’Malley
Ordinarily when a man in difficulty turns to prayer, he has already tried every other means of escape.
—Austin O’Malley
Topics: Prayer
Private interpretation in religion is like cutting your own hair.
—Austin O’Malley
It is twice as hard to crush a half-truth as a whole lie.
—Austin O’Malley
Topics: Truth
Humility is pride in God
—Austin O’Malley
Topics: Pride
That the Saints were usually in ill luck does not canonize you.
—Austin O’Malley
You cannot build up a character in a solitude; you need a formed character to stand a solitude.
—Austin O’Malley
Topics: Solitude
Those who think it is permissible to tell white lies soon grow color-blind.
—Austin O’Malley
Topics: Honesty
Memory is a crazy woman that hoards colored rags and throws away food.
—Austin O’Malley
Topics: Memory
Never carry your shotgun or your knowledge at half-cock.
—Austin O’Malley
Topics: Knowledge
Religion is a process of turning your skull into a tabernacle, not of going up to Jerusalem once a year.
—Austin O’Malley
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