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I found that what I had desired all my life was not to live - if what others are doing is called living - but to express myself.

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
Called
Living
Found
Others
Live
Life
Desired
Express

More quotes by Henry Miller

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In every man's heart there is anchored a little schooner.
Henry Miller
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It is silly to go on pretending that under the skin we are brothers. The truth is more likely that under the skin we are all cannibals, assassins, traitors, liars and hypocrites.
Henry Miller
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All my good reading, you might say, was done in the toilet.
Henry Miller
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How different the new order would be if we could consult the veteran instead of the politician.
Henry Miller
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And what is the potential man, after all? Is he not the sum of all that is human? Divine, in other words?
Henry Miller
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Until we lose ourselves there is no hope of finding ourselves.
Henry Miller
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Confusion is a word we have invented for an order which is not understood.
Henry Miller
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Once I thought that to be human was the highest aim a man could have, but I see now that it was meant to destroy me. To-day I am proud to say that I am inhuman, that I belong not to men and governments, that I have nothing to do with creeds and principles. I have nothing to do with the creaking machinery of humanity - I belong to the earth!
Henry Miller
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The city is loveliest when the sweet death racket begins. Her own life lived in defiance of nature, her electricity, her frigidaires, her soundproof walls, the glint of lacquered nails, the plumes that wave across the corrugated sky. Here in the coffin depths grow the everlasting flowers sent by telegraph.
Henry Miller
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My understanding of the meaning of a book is that the book itself disappears from sight, that it is chewed alive, digested and incorporated into the system as flesh and blood which in turn creates new spirit and reshapes the world.
Henry Miller
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We don't trust our five senses we rely on our critics and educators, all of whom are failures in the realm of creation.
Henry Miller
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One has to be a lowbrow, a bit of a murderer, to be a politician, ready and willing to see people sacrificed, slaughtered, for the sake of an idea, whether a good one or a bad one.
Henry Miller
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The real enemy can always be met and conquered, or won over. Real antagonism is based on love, a love which has not recognized itself.
Henry Miller
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A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition. Like money, books must be kept in constant circulation... A book is not only a friend, it makes friends for you. When you have possessed a book with mind and spirit, you are enriched. But when you pass it on you are enriched threefold.
Henry Miller
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The tragedy of it is that nobody sees the look of desperation on my face. Thousands and thousands of us, and we're passing one another without a look of recognition.
Henry Miller
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If we have not found heaven within, it is a certainty we will not find it without.
Henry Miller
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Whatever there be of progress in life comes not through adaptation but through daring.
Henry Miller
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I had a microscopic eye for the blemish, for the grain of ugliness which to me constituted the sole beauty of the object.
Henry Miller
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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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The world isn't kept running because it's a paying proposition. (God doesn't make a cent on the deal.) The world goes on because a few men in every generation believe in it utterly, accept it unquestioningly they underwrite it with their lives.
Henry Miller