Quotes by Henry James

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.

Obstacles are those frightening things you see when you take you eyes off your goal.

Live all you can: it's a mistake not to. It doesn't matter what you do in particular, so long as you have had your life. If you haven't had that, what have you had?

It is better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie around neglected.

Try to be one of those on whom nothing is lost.

There are few things more universally deplored than the fact that friends ever meet, to part.

I am so alone, even though the world is thronged with people. But that does not matter at all; I am used to it and am very peaceful.

Life is so enormous and wonderful. The more I see of it the more it makes me laugh.

The more you get to know people, the more you realize how difficult it is to manage without them.

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.

Everything about Florence seems to be colored with a mild violet, like diluted wine.

For life is only good for it renders to the soul a great adventure, and love is the true cause that gives this adventure its full significance.

Every man must be left free to work out his own ideas in his own way.

It is the fate of operating instruction manuals to be discarded unread.

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; imbeciles to be in great places, people of sense in small, and mankind generally

I don't want everyone to like me; I should think less of myself if some people did.

We can only escape the bloody and benighted past by exploring it to the utmost of our ability, trying to understand and correct its mistakes, improving on its achievements, and transcending its limitations.

Summer afternoon, summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.

A man who pretends to understand women is ad manners, for to him it is necessary, and with them it is possible.

There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.

To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else's type of thinking.

One's life must seem extremely flat with nothing whatever to grumble at.

Don't mind anything that anyone tells you about anyone else. Judge everyone and everything for yourself.

What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character?

Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.

People can be inhumane, but always the individual can be human.

The power to guess the unseen from the seen, to trace the implications of things, to judge the whole piece by the pattern, the condition of man by the condition of his affections, to tell the past by the manner of the present, to conjecture the unseen thi

It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.

I'm glad you like adverbs — I adore them; they are the only qualifications I really much respect.

I hold any writer sufficiently justified who is himself in love with his theme.

To read between the lines was easier than to follow the text.

She had an immense curiosity about life, and was constantly staring and wondering.

People talk about the conscience, but it is an unknown quantity, like hydrogen or mind. A man has something within him that claims to regulate his conduct, but no man knows what it is, nor can he say what it is.

Cats and monkeys; monkeys and cats; all human life is there.

The only reason for the existence of a novel is that it does attempt to represent life.

It is a good rule never to see or talk to the author of a book one admires; it is disappointing if he is not what one expects, and it is worse if he is.

She feels in italics and thinks in capital letters.

Life is a predicament which precedes death.

The right time is any time that one is still so lucky as to have.

I've always been interested in people, but I've never liked them.

A tradition is kept alive only by something being added to it.

In the right key one can say anything. In the wrong key, nothing.

I'm yours for ever—for ever and ever.

There are two kinds of taste, the taste for emotions of surprise and the taste for emotions of recognition.

I have always been interested in people, but I've never liked them.

Do not mind anything that anyone tells you about anyone else. Judge everyone and everything for yourself.

Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.

To take what there is, and use it, without waiting forever in vain for the preconceived.

The only obligation to which in advance we may hold a novel, without incurring the accusation of being arbitrary, is that it be interesting.

Deep experience is never peaceful.

Her chief dread was that she might find herself becoming thick-skinned.

Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind.

Try to be one of those on whom nothing is lost!

The house of fiction has in short not one window, but a million.

We work in the dark—we do what we can—we give what we have.

Live all you can; it's a mistake not to.

It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance.

Summer afternoon-summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.