Henry James - Live Quotes

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If I were to live my life over again, I would be an American. I would steep myself in America, I would know no other land.

Henry James
Live all you can. It's a mistake not to. It doesn't much matter what you do in particular, so much as you LIVE while you're doing it.

Henry James
To live only to suffer—only to feel the injury of life repeated and enlarged—it seemed to her she was too valuable, too capable, for that. Then she wondered if it were vain and stupid to think so well of herself. When had it even been a guarantee to be valuable? Wasn't all history full of the destruction of precious things? Wasn't it much more probable that if one were fine one would suffer?

Henry James
Live all you can — it's a mistake not to. It doesn't so much matter what you do in particular, so long as you have your life. If you haven't had that, what have you had?.. What one loses one loses; make no mistake about that... The right time is any time that one is still so lucky as to have.. Live!

Henry James
To live in such a place was, for Isabel, to hold to her ear all day a shell of the sea of the past. This vague eternal rumour kept her imagination awake.

Henry James
To live in the world of creation-to get into it and stay in it-to frequent it and haunt it...to think intently and fruitfully, to woo combinations and inspirations into being by a depth and continuity of attention and meditation-this is the only thing.

Henry James
Instead of leading to the high places of happiness, from which the world would seem to lie below one, so that one could look down with a sense of exaltation and advantage, and judge and choose and pity, it led rather downward and earthward, into realms of restriction and depression, where the sound of other lives, easier and freer, was heard as from above, and served to deepen the feeling of failure.

Henry James
Live as you like best, and your character will take care of itself. Most things are good for you; the exceptions are very rare.

Henry James
I could come back to America…to die—but never, never to live.

Henry James
To take what there is, and use it, without waiting forever in vain for the preconceived — to dig deep into the actual and get something out of that — this doubtless is the right way to live.

Henry James
He would agree that life is a little worth living — or worth living a little; but would remark that, unfortunately, to live little enough, we have to live a great deal.

Henry James