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Clarence Shepherd Day, Jr. (18 November 1874 – 28 December 1935) was an American author and humorist. Day's most famous work is the autobiographical Life with Father (1935), which detailed humorous episodes in his family's life, centering on his dominating father, during the 1890s in New York City.
- The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man. Nothing else that he builds ever lasts. Monuments fall; nations perish; civilizations grow old and die out; and, after an era of darkness, new races build others. But in the world of books are volumes that have seen this happen again and again, and yet live on, still young, still as fresh as the day they were written, still telling men’s hearts of the hearts of men centuries dead.
And even the books that do not last long, penetrate their own times at least, sailing farther than Ulysses even dreamed of, like ships on the seas. It is the author’s part to call into being their cargoes and passengers,—living thoughts and rich bales of study and jeweled ideas. And as for the publishers, it is they who build the fleet, plan the voyage, and sail on, facing wreck, till they find every possible harbor that will value their burden.- The Story of the Yale University Press Told by a Friend (1920), pp. 7–8.
- The rich are not really a bad lot. We must not judge by appearances. If it weren't for their money they would be indistinguishable from the rest of us. But money brings out their weaknesses, naturally. Would it not bring out ours? A moderate addiction to money may not always be hurtful; but when taken in excess it is nearly always bad for the health, it limits one's chance of indulging in nice simple pleasures, and in many cases it lowers the whole moral tone. The rich admit this — of each other; but what can they do? Once a man has begun to accumulate money, it is unnatural to stop. He actually gets in a state where he wants more and more.
This may seem incomprehensible to those who have never suffered from affluence, and yet they would feel the same way, in a millionaire's place. A man begins by thinking that he can have money without being its victim. He will admit that other men addicted to wealth find it hard to be moderate, but he always is convinced that he is different and has more self-control. But the growth of an appetite is determined by nature, not men, and this is as true of getting money as of anything else. As soon as a man is used to a certain amount, no matter how large, his ideas of what is suitable expand. That is the way men are made.- ""Annual Report of the League for Improving the Lives of the Rich" in The Crow's Nest (1921)
- When eras die, their legacies are left to strange police. Professors in New England guard The glory that was Greece.
- Thoughts without words (1928), p. 113
- You can't sweep other people off their feet, if you can't be swept off your own.
- After All (1936), p. 224
- Information's pretty thin stuff unless mixed with experience.
- As quoted in The International Thesaurus of Quotations (1970) edited by Rhoda Thomas Tripp
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- We must make the best of those ills which cannot be avoided.
- Alexander Hamilton, as quoted in The Home Book of Quotations, Classical and Modern (1958)
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