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London is on the whole the most possible form of life.

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
Life
Metropolis
London
Possible
Form
Whole

More quotes by Henry James

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Art is nothing more than the shadow of humanity.
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Excellence does not require perfection.
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Really, universally, relations stop nowhere, and the exquisite problem of the artist is eternally but to draw, by a geometry of his own, the circle within which they shall happily appear to do so.
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Every governmental institution has been a standing testimony to the harmonic destiny of society, a standing proof that the life of man is destined for peace and amity, instead of disorder and contention.
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I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of an artistic process.
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The effort really to see and really to represent is no idle business in face of the constant force that makes for muddlement. The great thing is indeed that the muddled state too is one of the very sharpest of the realities, that it also has color and form and character, has often in fact a broad and rich comicality.
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The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be . . .
Henry James
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There are two kinds of taste, the taste for emotions of surprise and the taste for emotions of recognition.
Henry James
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You think too much.' 'I suppose I do but I can’t help it, my mind is so terribly active. When I give myself, I give myself. I pay the penalty in my headaches, my famous headaches--a perfect circlet of pain! But I carry it as a queen carries her crown.
Henry James
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There are women who are for all your 'times of life.' They're the most wonderful sort.
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If the artist is necessarily sensitive, does that sensitiveness form in its essence a state constantly liable to shade off into the morbid? Does this liability, moreover, increase in proportion as the effort is great and the ambition intense?
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Ideas are, in truth, force.
Henry James
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...and the great advantage of being a literary woman, was that you could go everywhere and do everything.
Henry James
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Her memory's your love. You want no other.
Henry James
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A solitary maple on a woodside flames in single scarlet, recalls nothing so much as the daughter of a noble house dressed for a fancy ball, with the whole family gathered around to admire her before she goes.
Henry James
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Experience is never limited, and it is never complete
Henry James
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Ideas are, in truth, forces. Infinite, too, is the power of personality. A union of the two always makes history.
Henry James
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To live in the world of creation-to get into it and stay in it-to frequent it and haunt it...to think intently and fruitfully, to woo combinations and inspirations into being by a depth and continuity of attention and meditation-this is the only thing.
Henry James
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His kiss was like white lightning, a flash that spread, and spread again, and stayed.
Henry James
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I hold any writer sufficiently justified who is himself in love with his theme.
Henry James