We work in the dark — we do what we can — we give what we have.
HENRY JAMESIn other words summarise intensely and deeply and keep down the lateral development. It should be a little gem of bright, quick, vivid form
More Henry James Quotes
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I don’t care anything about reasons, but I know what I like.
HENRY JAMES -
Instead 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.
HENRY JAMES -
I have performed the necessary butchery. Here is the bleeding corpse.
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 -
Money’s a horrid thing to follow, but a charming thing to meet.
HENRY JAMES -
Sorrow comes in great waves…but rolls over us, and though it may almost smother us, it leaves us.
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 -
I think patriotism is like charity — it begins at home.
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 -
In art economy is always beauty.
HENRY JAMES -
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 -
What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character?
HENRY JAMES -
To establish in fine a relation with the criticized thing and to make it one’s own.
HENRY JAMES -
The power to guess the unseen from the seen, to trace the implications of things, to judge the whole piece by the pattern . . . this cluster of gifts may almost be said to constitute experience.
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