Let no one underestimate the need of pity. We live in a stony universe whose hard, brilliant forces rage fiercely.

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

Words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean.  Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes.

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

Words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean. Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes.

[Honors: At his funeral, Charlie Chaplin read Dreiser's poem,] The Road I Came. ... American writing before and after his time differed almost as much as biology before and after Darwin. He was a man of large originality, of profound feeling and of unshakable courage. All of us who write are better off because he lived, worked and hoped.