Quote

Art is only a means to life, to the life more abundant. It is not in itself the life more abundant. It merely points the way, something which is overlooked not only by the public, but very often by the artist himself. In becoming an end it defeats itself.

Henry Miller

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Henry Miller
Age: 88 †
Born: 1891
Born: December 26
Died: 1980
Died: June 7
Essayist
Novelist
Painter
Writer
New York City
New York
Genri Miller
Henri Miller
Phineas Flapdoodle
Ends
Defeat
Mean
Merely
Something
Becoming
Way
Public
Life
Means
Defeats
Often
Abundant
Artist
Overlooked
Art
Points

More quotes by Henry Miller

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All my good reading, you might say, was done in the toilet.
Henry Miller
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Over there you think of nothing but becoming President of the United States some day. Potentially every man is Presidential timber. Here it's different. Here every man is potentially a zero. If you become something or somebody it is an accident, a miracle.
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The man who is forever disturbed about the condition of humanity either has no problems of his own or has refused to face them.
Henry Miller
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If you are well off and can afford to spend ten or twenty-five dollars a day to hire some patient soul to listen to your troubles you can be readjusted to the crazy scheme of things and spare yourself the humiliation of becoming a Christian Scientist. You can have your ego trimmed or removed, as you wish, just like a wart or bunion.
Henry Miller
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Man torturing man is a fiend beyond description. You turn a corner in the dark and there he is. You congeal into a bundle of inanimate fear. You become the very soul of anesthesia. But there is no escaping him. It is your turn now.
Henry Miller
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Los Angeles gives one the feeling of the future more strongly than any city I know of. A bad future, too, like something out of Fritz Lang's feeble imagination.
Henry Miller
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Surely every one realizes, at some point along the way, that he is capable of living a far better life than the one he has chosen.
Henry Miller
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The only law which is really lived up to wholeheartedly and with a vengeance is the law of conformity.
Henry Miller
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Art teaches nothing, except the significance of life.
Henry Miller
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People are like lice - they get under your skin and bury themselves there. You scratch and scratch until the blood comes, but you can't get permanently deloused.
Henry Miller
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As long as that spark of passion is missing there is no human significance in the performance.
Henry Miller
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Don't look for miracles. You yourself are the miracle.
Henry Miller
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The sordid qualities imputed to the enemy are always those which we recognize as our own and therefore rise to slay, because only through projection do we realize the enormity and horror of them.
Henry Miller
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The history of the world is the history of the privileged few.
Henry Miller
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You have to write a million words before you find your voice as a writer.
Henry Miller
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Life has to be given a meaning because of the obvious fact that it has no meaning.
Henry Miller
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At Epidaurus, in the stillness, in the great peace that came over me, I heard the heart of the world beat. I know what the cure is: it is to give up, to relinquish, to surrender, so that our little hearts may beat in unison with the great heart of the world.
Henry Miller
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I think someday you're going to be a great writer, he said. But he added maliciously, first you'll have to suffer a bit. I mean really suffer, because you don't know what the word means yet. You only think you've suffered. You've got to fall in love first.
Henry Miller
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The most difficult thing to adjust to, apparently, is peace and contentment.
Henry Miller
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Do anything, but let it produce joy. Do anything, but let it yield ecstasy.
Henry Miller