Quotes by Henry Miller with world

Henry Miller

Henry Miller

American writer

Lived from: 1891 - 1980

Category: Writers (Contemporary) Country: FlagUnited States

Born: 26 december 1891 Died: 7 june 1980

  • Back of every creation, supporting it like an arch, is faith. Enthusiasm is nothing: it comes and goes. But if one believes, then miracles occur.
  • There is nothing strange about fear: no matter in what guise it presents itself it is something with which we are all so familiar that when a man appears who is without it we are at once enslaved by him.
  • I have never been able to look upon America as young and vital but rather as prematurely old, as a fruit which rotted before it had a chance to ripen.
  • Until it is kindled by a spirit as flamingly alive as the one which gave it birth a book is dead to us. Words divested of their magic are but dead hieroglyphs.
  • Hope is a bad thing. It means that you are not what you want to be. It means that part of you is dead, if not all of you. It means that you entertain illusions. It's a sort of spiritual clap, I should say.
  • Imagination is the voice of daring. If there is anything Godlike about God it is that. He dared to imagine everything.
  • The word which gives the key to the national vice is waste. And people who are wasteful are not wise, neither can they remain young and vigorous. In order to transmute energy to higher and more subtle levels one must first conserve it.
  • The great work must inevitably be obscure, except to the very few, to those who like the author himself are initiated into the mysteries. Communication then is secondary: it is perpetuation which is important. For this only one good reader is necessary.
  • 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.
  • Analysis brings no curative powers in its train; it merely makes us conscious of the existence of an evil, which, oddly enough, is consciousness.
  • What distinguishes the majority of men from the few is their inability to act according to their beliefs.
  • No one asks you to throw Mozart out of the window. Keep Mozart. Cherish him. Keep Moses too, and Buddha and Lao Tzu and Christ. Keep them in your heart. But make room for the others, the coming ones, the ones who are already scratching on the window-panes.
  • The dreamer whose dreams are non-utilitarian has no place in this world. In this world the poet is anathema, the thinker a fool, the artist an escapist, the man of vision a criminal.
  • 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.
  • In the attempt to defeat death man has been inevitably obliged to defeat life, for the two are inextricably related. Life moves on to death, and to deny one is to deny the other.
  • It is the American vice, the democratic disease which expresses its tyranny by reducing everything unique to the level of the herd.
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Quotes 1 till 11 of 11.

  • Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.
    ― Henry Miller
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  • Example moves the world more than doctrine. The great exemplars are the poets of action, and it makes little difference whether they be forces for good or forces for evil.
    ― Henry Miller
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  • I see America spreading disaster. I see America as a black curse upon the world. I see a long night settling in and that mushroom which has poisoned the world withering at the roots.
    ― Henry Miller
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  • It isn't the oceans which cut us off from the world - it's the American way of looking at things.
    ― Henry Miller
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  • The dreamer whose dreams are non-utilitarian has no place in this world. In this world the poet is anathema, the thinker a fool, the artist an escapist, the man of vision a criminal.
    ― Henry Miller
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  • The world is not to be put in order; the world is order, incarnate. It is for us to harmonize with this order.
    ― Henry Miller
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  • The world is the mirror of myself dying.
    ― 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
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  • The world itself is pregnant with failure, is the perfect manifestation of imperfection, of the consciousness of failure.
    ― Henry Miller
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  • Topographically the country is magnificent - and terrifying. Why terrifying? Because nowhere else in the world is the divorce between man and nature so complete. Nowhere have I encountered such a dull, monotonous fabric of life as here in America. Here boredom reaches its peak.
    ― Henry Miller
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  • What holds the world together, as I have learned from bitter experience, is sexual intercourse.
    ― Henry Miller
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What are the most famous quotes from Henry Miller?

The two most famous quotes from Henry Miller are:

  • "Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself."
  • "Example moves the world more than doctrine. The great exemplars are the poets of action, and it makes little difference whether they be forces for good or forces for evil."

When did Henry Miller live?

Henry Miller was born in 1891 and died in the year 1980.