He was an awkward mixture of strong moral impulse and restless aesthetic curiosity, and yet he would have made a most ineffective reformer and a very indifferent artist. It seemed to him that the glow of happiness must be found either in action, of some immensely solid kind, on behalf of an idea, or in producing a masterpiece in one of the arts.

Henry James

Tags: artist purpose-of-life grand-designs reformer



Go to quote


Take the word for it of a man who has made his way inch by inch, and does not believe that we'll wake up to find our work done because we've lain all night a-dreaming of it; anything worth doing is devilish hard to do!

Henry James

Tags: reality fantasy work-ethic



Go to quote


If you have work to do, don't wait to feel like it; set to work and you will feel like it.

Henry James

Tags: work moods



Go to quote


..her smile, which was her pretty feature, was never so pretty as when her sprightly phrase had a scratch lurking in it.

Henry James

Tags: expression smile sarcasm



Go to quote


Ideas are, in truth, forces. Infinite, too, is the power of personality. A union of the two always makes history.

Henry James


Show the quote in German

Show the quote in French

Show the quote in Italian

Go to quote


I always want to know the things one shouldn't do."
"So as to do them?" asked her aunt.
"So as to choose," said Isabel

Henry James


Show the quote in German

Show the quote in French

Show the quote in Italian

Go to quote


Nothing exceeds the license occasionally taken by the imagination of very rigid people.

Henry James


Go to quote


For all I know,he may be a prince in disguise; he rather looks like one, by the way- like a prince who has abdicated in a fit of magnanimity, and has been in a state of disgust ever since.

Henry James


Go to quote


There are two kinds of taste in the appreciation of imaginative literature: the taste for emotions of surprise and the taste for emotions of recognition.

Henry James

Tags: literature surprise recognition



Go to quote


He was there or was not there: not there if I didn't see him.

Henry James


Go to quote


« first previous
Page 19 of 32.
next last »

©gutesprueche.com

Data privacy

Imprint
Contact
Wir benutzen Cookies

Diese Website verwendet Cookies, um Ihnen die bestmögliche Funktionalität bieten zu können.

OK Ich lehne Cookies ab