Henry Miller quotes - page 8

Instead of asking 'How much damage will the work in question bring about?' why not ask 'How much good? How much joy?' (Henry Miller)
The legal system is often a mystery, and we, its priests, preside over rituals baffling to everyday citizens. View quote
Henry Miller
When you know what men are capable of you marvel neither at their sublimity nor their baseness. There are no limits in either direction apparently. View quote
Henry Miller
And what is the potential man, after all? Is he not the sum of all that is human? Divine, in other words? View quote
Henry Miller
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. View quote
Henry Miller
The Happiest peoples, it is said, are those which have no history. Those who have a history, those who have made history seem only to have emphazied through their acomplishments the eternality of struggle. These disappear too eventually, just as those who made no effort, who were content to merely live & enjoy. View quote
Henry Miller
I am glad to be a maggot in the corpse which is the world. View quote
Henry Miller
To be generous is to say yes before the man even opens his mouth. View quote
Henry Miller
For a hundred years or more the world, our world, has been dying. And not one man, in these last hundred years or so, has been crazy enough to put a bomb up the asshole of creation and set it off. The world is rotting away, dying piecemeal. But it needs the coup de grace, it needs to be blown to smithereens. View quote
Henry Miller
Take a good look at me. Now tell me, do you think I'm the sort of fellow who gives a fuck what happens once he's dead? View quote
Henry Miller
I see myself forever and ever as the ridiculous [person], the lonely soul, the wanderer, the restless frustrated artist, the [person] in love with love, always in search of the absolute, always seeking the unattainable. (Henry Miller)
She was to me, and still is, the greatest person I have known - one who can truly be called a "devoted" soul. I owe her everything. View quote
Henry Miller
It is with the soul that we grasp the essence of another person, not with the mind, not even with the heart. View quote
Henry Miller
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. View quote
Henry Miller
We create our fate every day... most of the ills we suffer from are directly traceable to our own behavior. View quote
Henry Miller
The pygmies are one of the most cultured peoples on the face of the earth. They live a wonderful life, a life of purity. Not only are they busy and productive, they're happy and healthy as well. If we puny Americans had to live under their conditions, we'd perish in a day. Modern man has much to learn from the people he calls 'savages'. Before we are down to the last blade of grass it would be wise to study the life of the Pygmies. The secret of our own survival rests with them, the people who know how to make the most out of very little and find complete happiness with the bare essentials. View quote
Henry Miller
Political leaders are never leaders. For leaders we have to look to the Awakeners! Lao Tse, Buddha, Socrates, Jesus, Milarepa, Gurdjiev, Krishnamurti. View quote
Henry Miller
The artist who becomes thoroughly aware consequently ceases to be one. View quote
Henry Miller
I venerate van Gogh. He was a remarkable human being, a man who knew about love. His work reflects a spirit filled with light, even though his life was a tragedy in many ways. View quote
Henry Miller
Wagner wrote an opera titled Tristan and Yseult and in it there is a theme called Love Death theme. It is so sensual, so sexual that he was criticized for having introduced sex into music. And that was quite a few years before the appearance of Elvis Presley! View quote
Henry Miller
Things happen or they don't happen, that's all. Nothing is accomplished by sweat and struggle. Nearly everything which we call life is just insomnia, an agony because we've lost the habit of falling asleep. (Henry Miller)
The truly great writer does not want to write. He wants the world to be a place in which he can live the life of the imagination. View quote
Henry Miller
As far as Bach is concerned, I never came close to liking him [-] My favourite composer is Scriabin -[and] his Fifth sonata, in my mind, the greatest piece of music ever written. View quote
Henry Miller
I am against revolutions because they always involve a return to the status quo. View quote
Henry Miller
The frantic desire to Live, to live at any cost, is not a result of the life rhythm in us, but of the death rhythm. View quote
Henry Miller