Bret Harte Quotes

United States, Writer
August 25, 1836 – May, 5, 1902.

Francis Bret Harte was an American short story writer and poet, best remembered for his short fiction featuring miners, gamblers, and other romantic figures of the California Gold Rush. In a career spanning more than four decades, he wrote poetry, plays, lectures, book reviews, editorials, and magazine sketches in addition to fiction. As he moved from California to the eastern U.S. to Europe, he incorporated new subjects and characters into his stories, but his Gold Rush tales have been most often reprinted, adapted, and admired.

Also known as Poet

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

Bret Harte
- Wish
- Dark
Never a tear bedims the eye that time and patience will not dry.

Bret Harte
- Time
- Patience

Well, no offense:Thar ain't no senseIn gittin' riled.

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

Bret Harte
- Pain
We begin to die as soon as we are born, and the end is linked to the beginning.

Bret Harte
- Die
- Beginning
We are ruined by Chinese cheap labor.

Bret Harte
- Chinese
Howbeit, though no scholar, I am not one of those who misuse the English speech, and, being foolishly led by the hasty custom of scriveners and printers to write the letters 'T' and 'H' joined together, which resembleth a 'Y,' do incontinently jump to the conclusion the THE is pronounced 'Ye,'-the like of which I never heard in all England.

Bret Harte
- Together
- English
- Jump
Ah Sin was his name.

Bret Harte

Each lost day has its patron saint!

Bret Harte
- Lost
A bird in hand is a certainty. But a bird in the bush may sing.

Bret Harte
- May
- Hand
- Bird
Don't be too quickTo break bad habits: better stick,Like the Mission folk, to your arsenic.

Bret Harte
- Bad
But, when the goddess' work is done,The woman's still remains.

Bret Harte
- Work
- Done
- Goddess
Virtue always meets reward,But quicker when it wears a sword;

Bret Harte
And then, for an old man like me, it's not exactly right,This kind o' playing soldier with no enemy in sight.

Bret Harte
- Enemy
- Soldier

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

Bret Harte
- Luck
Man has the possibility of existence after death. But possibility is one thing and the realization of the possibility is quite a different thing.

Bret Harte
- Different
- Death
And he says that the mountains are fairerFor once being held in your thought;

Bret Harte
With the smile that was childlike and bland.

Bret Harte
- Smile
There is peace in the swamp, though the quiet is Death,

Bret Harte
- Death
- Peace
Later, when we were forced to accept the fact that finding gold was really the primary object of a gold-mining company, we still remained there

Bret Harte
- Gold