We work in the dark – we do what we can – we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.
HENRY JAMESIt takes an endless amount of history to make even a little tradition.
More Henry James Quotes
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It is difficult to speak adequately or justly of London. It is not a pleasant place; it is not agreeable, or cheerful, or easy, or exempt from reproach. It is only magnificent.
HENRY JAMES -
You must save what you can of your life; you musn’t lose it all simply because you’ve lost a part.
HENRY JAMES -
What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character?
HENRY JAMES -
Criticism talks a good deal of nonsense, but even its nonsense is a useful force. It keeps the question of art before the world, insists upon its importance.
HENRY JAMES -
Judge everyone and everything for yourself.
HENRY JAMES -
You are good for nothing unless you are clever.
HENRY JAMES -
Adjectives are the sugar of literature and adverbs the salt.
HENRY JAMES -
One can’t judge till one’s forty; before that we’re too eager, too hard, too cruel, and in addition much too ignorant.
HENRY JAMES -
Don’t underestimate the value of irony-it is extremely valuable.
HENRY JAMES -
There were several ways of understanding her: there was what she said, and there was what she meant, and there was something between the two, that was neither.
HENRY JAMES -
Art is nothing more than the shadow of humanity.
HENRY JAMES -
Live all you can; it’s a mistake not to.
HENRY JAMES -
The success of a work of art, to my mind, may be measured by the degree to which it produces a certain illusion; that illusion makes it appear to us for the time that we have lived another life – that we have had a miraculous enlargement of experience.
HENRY JAMES -
To take what there is in life and use it, without waiting forever in vain for the preconceived, to dig deep into the actual and get something out of that; this, doubtless, is the right way to live.
HENRY JAMES -
To live in the world of creation-to get into it and stay in it-to frequent it and haunt it…to think intently and fruitfully, to woo combinations and inspirations into being by a depth and continuity of attention and meditation-this is the only thing.
HENRY JAMES