He acted too often without counting the cost, from some dazzling conception—one could not say from impulse, for impulses are from the heart. He liked to reorganize and change things for the sake of change, to make a fine gesture. He destroyed the old before he had clearly thought out the new.

About Willa Cather

Willa Sibert Cather (; born Wilella Sibert Cather; December 7, 1873 – April 24, 1947) was an American writer known for her novels of life on the Great Plains, including O Pioneers!, The Song of the Lark, and My Ántonia. In 1923, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for One...

More quotations from Willa Cather

Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart.

—Willa Cather

winter

Security is a kind of death.

—Willa Cather

security

I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do.

—Willa Cather

trees

He had the uneasy manner of a man who is not among his own kind, and who has not seen enough of the world to feel that all people are in some sense his own kind.

—Willa Cather

No one can build his security upon the nobleness of another person.

—Willa Cather

nobility

History

10 Oct 2015 Added
26 Oct 2026 Wording changed

Previous wording

He acted too often without counting the cost, from some dazzling conception — one could not say from impulse, for impulses are from the heart. He liked to reorganize and change things for the sake of change, to make a fine gesture. He destroyed the old before he had clearly thought out the new.