Henry Valentine Miller was an American writer. He was known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new type of semi-autobiographical novel that blended character study. This Henry Miller quotes on art, travel will motivate you.
Best Henry Miller Quotes
- “Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heroes. Life has no other discipline to impose if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such” ~ Henry Miller
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“If there is to be any peace it will come through being, not having.” ~ Henry Miller
- “It is with the soul that we grasp the essence of another human being, not with the mind, nor even with the heart.” ~ Henry Miller
- “Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate, or despise, serves to defeat us in the end.” ~ Henry Miller
- “To be silent the whole day long, see no newspaper, hear no radio, listen to no gossip, be thoroughly and completely lazy, thoroughly and completely indifferent to the fate of the world is the finest medicine a man can give himself.” ~ Henry Miller
- “The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.” ~ Henry Miller
- “If we have not found heaven within, it is a certainty we will not find it without.” ~ Henry Miller
- “The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.” ~ Henry Miller
- “A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition.” ~ Henry Miller
- “Real love is never perplexed, never qualifies, never rejects, never demands. It replenishes, by grace of restoring unlimited circulation. It burns, because it knows the true meaning of sacrifice. It is life illuminated.” ~ Henry Miller
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“The goal of life is not to possess power but to radiate it.” ~ Henry Miller
- “The one thing we can never get enough of is love. And the one thing we never give enough is love.” ~ Henry Miller
- “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.” ~ Henry Miller
- “Everything hinges on how you look at things” ~ Henry Miller
- “It was only in my forties that I started feeling young.” ~ Henry Miller
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“Man has demonstrated that he is master of everything – except his own nature.” ~ Henry Miller
- “What I want is to open up. I want to know what’s inside me. I want everybody to open up. I’m like an imbecile with a can opener in his hand, wondering where to begin– to open up the earth. I know that underneath the mess everything is marvelous. I’m sure of it.” ~ Henry Miller
- “Surely every one realizes, at some point along the way, that he is capable of living a far better life than the one he has chosen.” ~ Henry Miller
- “We create our fate every day . . . most of the ills we suffer from are directly traceable to our own behavior.” ~ Henry Miller
- “I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in seclusion; I need the sunshine and the paving stones of the streets without companions, without conversation, face to face with myself, with only the music of my heart for company.” ~ Henry Miller
- “Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.” ~ Henry Miller
- “Every day that we fail to live out the maximum of our potentialities we kill the Shakespeare, Dante, Homer, Christ which is in us.” ~ Henry Miller
- “Every man has his own destiny: the only imperative is to follow it, to accept it, no matter where it leads him.” ~ Henry Miller
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“All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without benefit of experience.” ~ Henry Miller
- “Every man, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths. We all derive from the same source. There is no mystery about the origin of things. We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up, only to discover what is already there.” ~ Henry Miller Quotes
- “Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music – the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.” ~ Henry Miller
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“To make living itself an art, that is the goal.” ~ Henry Miller
- “Why are we so full of restraint? Why do we not give in all directions? Is it fear of losing ourselves? Until we do lose ourselves there is no hope of finding ourselves.” ~ Henry Miller
- “An artist earns the right to call himself a creator only when he admits to himself that he is but an instrument.” ~ Henry Miller
- “I think someday you’re going to be a great writer,” he said. “But” he added maliciously, “first you’ll have to suffer a bit. I mean really suffer, because you don’t know what the word means yet. You only think you’ve suffered. You’ve got to fall in love first.” ~ Henry Miller
- “We have been educated to such a fine – or dull – point that we are incapable of enjoying something new, something different, until we are first told what it’s all about. We don’t trust our five senses; we rely on our critics and educators, all of whom are failures in the realm of creation. In short, the blind lead the blind. It’s the democratic way.” ~ Henry Miller
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“Whatever there be of progress in life comes not through adaptation but through daring.” ~ Henry Miller
- “Dedication is not what others expect of you, it is what you can give to others.” ~ Henry Miller
- “The art of living is based on rhythm – on give & take, ebb & flow, light & dark, life & death. By acceptance of all aspects of life, good & bad, right & wrong, yours & mine, the static, defensive life, which is what most people are cursed with, is converted into a dance, ‘the dance of life,’ metamorphosis.” ~ Henry Miller
- “It is almost banal to say so yet it needs to be stressed continually: all is creation, all is change, all is flux, all is metamorphosis.” ~ Henry Miller
- “‘Life’, said Emerson, “consists in what a man is thinking all day.” If that be so, then my life is nothing but a big intestine.” ~ Henry Miller
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“Destiny is what you are supposed to do in life. Fate is what kicks you in the ass to make you do it.” ~ Henry Miller
- “Once I thought that to be human was the highest aim a man could have, but I see now that it was meant to destroy me. To-day I am proud to say that I am inhuman, that I belong not to men and governments, that I have nothing to do with creeds and principles. I have nothing to do with the creaking machinery of humanity – I belong to the earth!” ~ Henry Miller
- “The earth is not a lair, neither is it a prison. The earth is a Paradise, the only one we’ll ever know. We will realize it the moment we open our eyes. We don’t have to make it a Paradise-it is one. We have only to make ourselves fit to inhabit it. The man with the gun, the man with murder in his heart, cannot possibly recognize Paradise even when he is shown it.” ~ Henry Miller Quotes
- “Living apart and at peace with myself,I came to realize more vividly the meaning of the doctrine of acceptance. To refrain from giving advice, to refrain from meddling in the affairs of others, to refrain even though the motives be the highest, from tampering with anothers way of life-so simple, yet so difficult for an active spirit. Hands Off.” ~ Henry Miller
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“To be joyous is to be a madman in a world of sad ghosts.” ~ Henry Miller
- “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.” ~ Henry Miller
- “The full and joyful acceptance of the worst in oneself may be the only sure way of transforming it.” ~ Henry Miller
- “I see myself forever and ever as the ridiculous man, the lonely soul, the wanderer, the restless frustrated artist, the man in love with love, always in search of the absolute, always seeking the unattainable” ~ Henry Miller
- “In the beginning was the Word. Man acts it out. He is the act, not the actor.” ~ Henry Miller
