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do you think it is better to be clever than to be good?” “Good for what?” asked the Doctor. “You are good for nothing unless you are clever.

Henry James

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Henry James
Age: 73 †
Born: 1843
Born: January 1
Died: 1916
Died: January 1
Contributing Editor
Literary Critic
Novelist
Playwright
Poet Lawyer
Screenwriter
Short Story Writer
Writer
New York City
New York
Henricus James
Better
Nothing
Good
Think
Doctor
Thinking
Clever
Doctors
Asked
Unless

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Nothing, of course, will ever take the place of the good old fashion of 'liking' a work of art or not liking it the more improved criticism will not abolish that primitive, that ultimate, test.
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In the long run an opinion often borrows credit from the forbearance of its patrons.
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London is on the whole the most possible form of life.
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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.
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..her smile, which was her pretty feature, was never so pretty as when her sprightly phrase had a scratch lurking in it.
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I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of an artistic process.
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Do not mind anything that anyone tells you about anyone else. Judge everyone and everything for yourself.
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Excellence does not require perfection.
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It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance, for our consideration and application of these things, and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process.
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Art without life is a poor affair.
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Novelist-Citizen of Two Countries Interpreter of his Generation on both Sides of the Sea.
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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.
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It's a complex fate, being an American, and one of the responsibilities it entails is fighting against a superstitious valuation of Europe.
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Innocent and infinite are the pleasures of observation.
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Her imagination was by habit ridiculously active when the door was not open it jumped out the window.
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One of my latest sensations was going to Lady Airlie's to hear Browning read his own poems - with the comport of finding that, at least, if you don't understand them, he himself apparently understands them even less. He read them as if he hated them and would like to bite them to pieces.
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I mean that everything this afternoon has been too beautiful, and that perhaps everything together will never be so right again. I'm very glad therefore you've been a part of it.
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An Englishman's never so natural as when he's holding his tongue.
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...and the great advantage of being a literary woman, was that you could go everywhere and do everything.
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