Quotes by Theodore Dreiser

• Nothing is proved, all is permitted.
• Words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean. Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes.
• Our civilization is still in a middle stage, scarcely beast, in that it is no longer wholly guided by instinct; scarcely human, in that it is not yet wholly guided by reason.
• Let no one underestimate the need of pity. We live in a stony universe whose hard, brilliant forces rage fiercely.
• In order to have wisdom we must have ignorance.
• I believe in the compelling power of love. I do not understand it. I believe it to be the most fragrant blossom of all this thorny existence.
• Art is the stored honey of the human soul, gathered on wings of misery and travail.
• Assure a man that he has a soul and then frighten him with old wives' tales as to what is to become of him afterward, and you have hooked a fish, a mental slave.