Henry James citations

“Don't mind anything anyone tells you about anyone else. Judge everyone and everything for yourself.”

“She ordered a cup of tea, which proved excessively bad, and this gave her a sense that she was suffering in a romantic cause.”

“Don’t underestimate the value of irony—it is extremely valuable.”

“You must save what you can of your life; you musn't lose it all simply because you've lost a part.”

“She feels in italics and thinks in CAPITALS.”

“We work in the dark — we do what we can — we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.”

“Sorrow comes in great waves… but rolls over us, and though it may almost smother us, it leaves us. And we know that if it is strong, we are stronger, inasmuch as it passes and we remain.”

“There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.”

“I call people rich when they're able to meet the requirements of their imagination.”

“She had an immense curiosity about life, and was constantly staring and wondering.”

“Besides, I try to judge things for myself; to judge wrong, I think, is more honourable than not to judge at all.”

“If one is strong, one loves the more strongly.”

“He is outside of everything, and an alien everywhere. He is an aesthetic solitary. His beautiful, light imagination is the wing that on the autumn evening just brushes the dusky window.”

“Her imagination was by habit ridiculously active; when the door was not open it jumped out the window.”

“Love has nothing to do with good reasons.”

“There were several ways of understanding her: there was what she said, and there was what she meant, and there was something between the two, that was neither.”

“do you think it is
better to be clever than to be good?”
“Good for what?” asked the Doctor. “You are good for
nothing unless you are clever.”

“Summer afternoon — summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.”

“I'm glad you like adverbs — I adore them; they are the only qualifications I really much respect.”

“It's time to start living the life you've imagined.”

“I don't want everyone to like me; I should think less of myself if some people did.”

“I'm yours for ever--for ever and ever. Here I stand; I'm as firm as a rock. If you'll only trust me, how little you'll be disappointed. Be mine as I am yours.”

“Her reputation for reading a great deal hung about her like the cloudy envelope of a goddess in an epic.”

“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”

“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?”

“And remember this, that if you've been hated, you've also been loved.”

“Never say you know the last word about any human heart.”

“Try to be one of those on whom nothing is lost.”

“Obstacles are those frightening things you see when you take you eyes off your goal.”