Henry James Quotes
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.
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 feeling life in general so completely that you are well on your way to knowing any particular corner of it -- this cluster of gifts may almost be said to constitute experience.
Cats and monkeys; monkeys and cats: all human life is there.
It is, I think, an indisputable fact that Americans are, as Americans, the most self-conscious people in the world, and the most addicted to the belief that the other nations of the earth are in a conspiracy to undervalue them.
I think I don't regret a single 'excess' of my responsive youth--I only regret, in my chilled age, certain occasions and possibilities I didn't embrace.
He is outside of everything, and alien everywhere. He is an aesthetic solitary. His beautiful, light imagination is the wing that on the autumn evening just brushes the dusky window.
Everything about Florence seems to be colored with a mild violet, like diluted wine.
Summer afternoon - Summer afternoon ... the two most beautiful words in the English language.
Be generous, be delicate, and always pursue the prize.
What every genuine philosopher (every genuine man, in fact) craves most is praise--although the philosophers generally call it "recognition"!