We work in the dark — we do what we can — we give what we have.
HENRY JAMESInstead of leading to the high places of happiness, from which the world would seem to lie below one, so that one could look down with a sense of exaltation and advantage, and judge and choose and pity.
More Henry James Quotes
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True happiness, we are told, consists in getting out of one’s self; but the point is not only to get out – you must stay out; and to stay out you must have some absorbing errand.
HENRY JAMES -
I have performed the necessary butchery. Here is the bleeding corpse.
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I am incapable of telling you not to feel. Feel, feel, I say – feel for all you’re worth, and even if it half kills you, for that is the only way to live.
HENRY JAMES -
She feels in italics and thinks in CAPITALS.
HENRY JAMES -
She had an immense curiosity about life, and was constantly staring and wondering.
HENRY JAMES -
Art is nothing more than the shadow of humanity.
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Don’t try so much to form your character – it’s like trying to pull open a tight, tender young rose.
HENRY JAMES -
The right time is any time that one is still so lucky as to have.
HENRY JAMES -
Things are always different than what they might be…If you wait for them to change, you will never do anything.
HENRY JAMES -
To criticize is to appreciate, to appropriate, to take intellectual possession.
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Cats and monkeys; monkeys and cats; all human life is there.
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And we know that if it is strong, we are stronger, inasmuch as it passes and we remain.
HENRY JAMES -
Life is, in fact, a battle. Evil is insolent and strong; beauty enchanting, but rare; goodness very apt to be weak; folly very apt to be defiant; wickedness to carry the day.
HENRY JAMES -
Excellence does not require perfection.
HENRY JAMES -
If I could pronounce the name James in any different or more elaborate way I should be in favor of doing it.
HENRY JAMES