27 Quotes by John Kendrick Bangs

The outer garments of to-day will become the under-clothes of some destined to-morrow, and centuries hence a man found walking on the public highways dressed as you are will be arrested by the police for shocking the sense of propriety of the community, and so on. It will go on and on until you will find human beings everywhere decked out in layer after layer of clothes until he or she has lost all semblance to that beautiful thing that an all-wise Providence has designed us to be.

Curious," it said. "What you call your decent self doesn't dare look me in the eye! What a mistake people make who say that the man who won't look you in the eye is not to be trusted! As if mere brazenness were a sign of honesty; really, the theory of decency is the most amusing thing in the world.

as I [Eve] was the only cook in all Christendom at the time, the idea of not coming home to dinner never occurred to Adam... It is true that at times he criticised my cooking, but in view of certain ancestral limitations from which he suffered, I never had to sit quietly and listen to an exasperating disquisition on the Pies That Mother Used To Make...

Taking the alphabet first and learning one letter a year for twenty-six years he will be able to read and write as early in life as he ought to. If we were more careful not to teach our children to read in their childhood we should not be so anxious about the effects of pernicious literature upon their adolescent morals.

Comes now a smiling New-Born Year To fill to-day with goodly cheer— An infant hale and lusty. Upon our door-sill he is left By Daddy Time, of clothes bereft Despite the season gusty. If he be Churl or doughty Knight, A Son of Darkness or of Light No man can tell, God bless him! But be he base or glorious Time puts it wholly up to us To dress him!

I have no dog, but it must be Somewhere there's one belongs to me-- A little chap with wagging tail, And dark brown eyes that never quail, But look you through, and through, and through, With love unspeakable and true.

Whose heart doth hold the Christmas glow Hath little need of Mistletoe; Who bears a smiling grace of mien Need waste no time on wreaths of green; Whose lips have words of comfort spread Needs not the holly-berries red— His very presence scatters wide The spirit of the Christmastide.

Bring forth the raisins and the nuts- Tonight All-Hallows' Spectre struts Along the moonlit way.

I like the man who takes the stones Upon his rocky road With smiling lips instead of groans, Whate'er his heavy load Who seizes each as on he goes, And neatly crumbles it, And turns his share of pebbly woes To stores of inner grit.