Google
|
The quotations are arranged by author name.
Current counts: Authors: 8,146. Quotations: 38,970
Select the first character of the author's last name that you want to look at:
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
|
| Henry Miller
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. All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without the benefit of experience. America is no place for an artist: to be an artist is to be a moral leper, an economic misfit, a social liability. a corn-fed hog enjoys a better life than a creative writer, painter, or musician. To be a rabbit is better still. Art teaches nothing, except the significance of life. Confusion is a word we have invented for an order which is not understood. 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. Every man with a bellyful of the classics is an enemy to the human race. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such. 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. 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. If we are always arriving and departing, it is also true that we are eternally anchored. One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things. In this age, which believes that there is a short cut to everything, the greatest lesson to be learned is that the most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest. Life is 440 horsepower in a 2-cylinder engine. Music is a beautiful opiate, if you don't take it too seriously. Obscenity is a cleansing process, whereas pornography only adds to the murk. 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. One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things. Our own physical body possesses a wisdom which we who inhabit the body lack. We give it orders which make no sense. The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware. The City of New York is like an enormous citadel, a modern Carcassonne. Walking between the magnificent skyscrapers one feels the presence on the fringe of a howling, raging mob, a mob with empty bellies, a mob unshaven and in rags. The concert is a polite form of self induced torture. The legal system is often a mystery, and we, its priests, preside over rituals baffling to everyday citizens. The man who looks for security, even in the mind, is like a man who would chop off his limbs in order to ahve artificial ones which will give him no pain or trouble. The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself. The real leader has no need to lead -- he is content to point the way. There is no salvation in becoming adapted to a world which is crazy. To live without killing is a thought which could electrify the world, if men were only capable of staying awake long enough to let the idea soak in. What does it matter how one comes by the truth so long as one pounces upon it and lives by it? Whatever I do is done out of sheer joy; I drop my fruits like a ripe tree. What the general reader or the critic makes of them is not my concern. When one is trying to do something beyond his known powers it is useless to seek the approval of friends. Friends are at their best in moments of defeat. |
|
Sports Quotations.
Show Business Quotations.
|