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 JAMESGod’s creature is one. He makes man, not men. His true creature is unitary and infinite, revealing himself, indeed, in every finite form, but compromised by none.
More Henry James Quotes
-
-
I hate American simplicity. I glory in the piling up of complications of every sort.
HENRY JAMES -
Art is nothing more than the shadow of humanity.
HENRY JAMES -
The main object of the novel is to represent life. . .
HENRY JAMES -
The artist is present in every page of every book from which he sought so assiduously to eliminate himself.
HENRY JAMES -
Live all you can; it’s a mistake not to.
HENRY JAMES -
Cats and monkeys; monkeys and cats; all human life is there.
HENRY JAMES -
You are good for nothing unless you are clever.
HENRY JAMES -
Excellence does not require perfection.
HENRY JAMES -
I’ve always expected the worst, and it’s always worse than I expected.
HENRY JAMES -
I think patriotism is like charity — it begins at home.
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 -
If this was love, love had been overrated.
HENRY JAMES -
It takes an endless amount of history to make even a little tradition.
HENRY JAMES -
Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.
HENRY JAMES -
Young men of this class never do anything for themselves that they can get other people to do for them, and it is the infatuation, the devotion, the superstition of others that keeps them going. These others in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred are women.
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 call people rich when they’re able to meet the requirements of their imagination.
HENRY JAMES -
A man who pretends to understand women is bad manners. For him to really to understand them is bad morals.
HENRY JAMES -
To criticize is to appreciate, to appropriate, to take intellectual possession.
HENRY JAMES -
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 -
A tradition is kept alive only by something being added to it.
HENRY JAMES -
I’m yours for ever–for ever and ever. Here I stand; I’m as firm as a rock. If you’ll only trust me, how little you’ll be disappointed. Be mine as I am yours.
HENRY JAMES -
Don’t try so much to form your character – it’s like trying to pull open a tight, tender young rose.
HENRY JAMES -
If you have work to do, don’t wait to feel like it; set to work and you will feel like it.
HENRY JAMES -
It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.
HENRY JAMES -
She feels in italics and thinks in CAPITALS.
HENRY JAMES