Henry James

Writer

1843-04-15

Quotes by Henry James

• I don't know why we live— the gift of life comes to us from I don't know what source or for what purpose; but I believe we can go on living for the reason that (always of course up to a certain point) life is the most valuable thing we know anything about and it is therefore presumptively a great mistake to surrender it while there is any yet left in the cup. In other words consciousness is an illimitable power, and though at times it may seem to be all consciousness of misery, yet in the way it propagates itself from wave to wave, so that we never cease to feel, though at moments we appear to, try to, pray to, there is something that holds one in one's place, makes it a standpoint in the universe which it is probably good not to forsake. You are right in your consciousness that we are all echoes and reverberations of the same, and you are noble when your interest and pity as to everything that surrounds you, appears to have a sustaining and harmonizing power. Only don't, I beseech you, generalize too much in these sympathies and tendernesses— remember that every life is a special problem which is not yours but another's, and content yourself with the terrible algebra of your own. Don't melt too much into the universe, but be as solid and dense and fixed as you can. We all live together, and those of us who love and know, live so most. We help each other— even unconsciously, each in our own effort, we lighten the effort of others, we contribute to the sum of success, make it possible for others to live. Sorrow comes in great waves— no one can know that better than you— but it rolls over us, and though it may almost smother us it leaves us on the spot and we know that if it is strong we are stronger, inasmuch as it passes and we remain. It wears us, uses us, but we wear it and use it in return; and it is blind, whereas we after a manner see

  Read quote

• It's very true; there are many more iron pots certainly than porcelain. But you may depend on it that every one bears some mark; even the hardest iron pots have a little bruise, a little hole somewhere. I flatter myself that I'm rather stout, but if I must tell you the truth I've beenshockingly chipped and cracked. I do very well for service yet, because I've been cleverly mended; and I try to remain in the cupboard— the quiet, dusky cupboard where there's an odour of stale spices— as much as I can. Butwhen I've to come out and into a strong light— then, my dear, I'm a horror!

  Read quote

• They had from an early hour made up their mind that society was, luckily, unintelligent, and the margin allowed them by this had fairly become one of their commonplaces.

  Read quote

• I have never allowed a gentleman to dictate to me, or to interfere with anything I do.

  Read quote

• What we often take to be the new is simply the old under some novel form.

  Read quote

• Let us be vulgar and have some fun, let us invite the President.

  Read quote

• Try to be someone upon whom nothing is lost!

  Read quote

• I don't need the aid of a clever man to teach me how to live. I can find it out for myself.

  Read quote

• Our relation, all round, exists--it's a reality, and a very good one; we're mixed up, so to speak, and it's too late to change it. We must live IN it and with it

  Read quote

• Take the word for it of a man who has made his way inch by inch, and does not believe that we'll wake up to find our work done because we've lain all night a-dreaming of it; anything worth doing is devilish hard to do!

  Read quote

• I should think that to hear such lovely music as that would really make him feel better.The lady gave a discriminating smile. —I am afraid there are moments in life when even Beethoven has nothing to say to us. We must admit, however, that they are our worst moments.

  Read quote

• There's no more usual basis of union than mutual misunderstanding.

  Read quote

• I take up my own pen again - the pen of all my old unforgettable efforts and sacred struggles. To myself - today - I need say no more. Large and full and high the future still opens. It is now indeed that I may do the work of my life. And I will.

  Read quote

• If you have work to do, don't wait to feel like it; set to work and you will feel like it.

  Read quote

• The historic atmosphere was there, certainly; but the historic atmosphere, scientifically considered, was no better than a villainous miasma

  Read quote

• It's very silly,— she said, —but I go on with it in spite of myself. I'm afraid I'm too easily pleased; no novel is so silly I can't read it.

  Read quote

• Nothing irritates me so as the flatness of people's imagination.

  Read quote

• Art lives upon discussion, upon experiment, upon curiosity, upon variety of attempt, upon the exchange of views and the comparison of standpoints.

  Read quote

• ..if I dont do something on the grand scale, it is that my genius is altogether imitative, and that I have nor recently encountered any very striking models of grandeur.

  Read quote

• It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance, and I know of no substitute for the force and beauty of it's process.

  Read quote