Nicole > Nicole's Quotes

“The one thing we can never get enough of is love. And the one thing we never give enough of is love.”
― Henry Miller

“A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition.”
― Henry Miller, The Books in My Life

“Let me be, was all I wanted. Be what I am, no matter how I am.”
― Henry Miller, Stand Still Like the Hummingbird

“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

“The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.”
― 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, Tropic of Cancer

“Every day we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heartache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty. 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

“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

“One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”
― 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

“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

“Everyone has his own reality in which, if one is not too cautious, timid or frightened, one swims. This is the only reality there is.”
― Henry Miller, Stand Still Like the Hummingbird

“I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive.”
― Henry Miller

“Serenity is when you get above all this, when it doesn't matter what they think, say or want, but when you do as you are, and see God and Devil as one.”
― Henry Miller

“The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself”
― 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

“If there is to be any peace it will come through being, not having.”
― Henry Miller

“To be joyous is to be a madman in a world of sad ghosts.”
― Henry Miller

“I have found God, but he is insufficient.”
― Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer

“All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without the benefit of experience.”
― Henry Miller

“Imagination is the voice of daring. If there is anything godlike about God, it is that. He dared to imagine everything”
― Henry Miller, Sexus

“When you surrender, the problem ceases to exist. Try to solve it,or conquer it, and you only set up more resistance. I am very certain now that, as I said therein, if I truly become what I wish to be, the burden will fall away. The most difficult thing to admit, and to realize with one’s whole being, is that you alone control nothing.”
― Henry Miller, A Literate Passion: Letters of Anaïs Nin & Henry Miller, 1932-1953

“I believe that today more than ever a book should be sought after even if it has only one great page in it. We must search for fragments, splinters, toenails, anything that has ore in it, anything that is capable of resuscitating the body and the soul.”
― Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer

“Do anything, but let it produce joy. Do anything, but let it yield ecstasy.”
― Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer

“No one asks you to throw Mozart out of the window. Keep Mozart. Cherish him. Keep Moses too, and Buddha and Lao Tzu and Christ. Keep them in your heart. But make room for the others, the coming ones, the ones who are already scratching on the window-panes.”
― Henry Miller

“A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition. Like money, books must be kept in constant circulation... 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.”
― Henry Miller, The Books in My Life

“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, Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch

“It's good to be just plain happy, it's a little better to know that you're happy; but to understand that you're happy and to know why and how and still be happy, be happy in the being and the knowing, well that is beyond happiness, that is bliss.”
― Henry Miller

“Chaos is the score upon which reality is written.”
― Henry Miller

“Nothing can be given or taken away; nothing has been added or subtracted; nothing increased or diminished. We stand on the same shore before the same mighty ocean. The ocean of love. There it is - in perpetuum. As much in a broken blossom, the sound of a waterfall, the swoop of a carrion bird as in the thunderous artillery of the prophet.
We move with eyes shut and ears stopped; we smash walls where doors are waiting to open to the touch; we grope for ladders, forgetting that we have wings; we pray as if God were deaf and blind, as if He were in a space. No wonder the angels in our midst are unrecognizable.
One day it will be pleasant to remember these things.”
― Henry Miller