Kate Mitchell > Kate's Quotes

“Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind.”
― Henry James

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

“Live all you can: it's a mistake not to. It doesn't matter what you do in particular, so long as you have had your life. If you haven't had that, what have you had?”
― Henry James, The Ambassadors

“Life is, in fact, a battle. Evil is insolent and strong; beauty enchanting, but rare; goodness very apt to be weak; folly very apt to be defiant; wickedness to carry the day; imbeciles to be in great places, people of sense in small, and mankind generally unhappy. But the world as it stands is no narrow illusion, no phantasm, no evil dream of the night; we wake up to it, forever and ever; and we can neither forget it nor deny it nor dispense with it.”
― Henry James, Theory of Fiction: Henry James

“I intend to judge things for myself; to judge wrongly, I think, is more honorable than not to judge at all.”
― Henry James

“Be not afraid of life believe that life is worth living and your belief will create the fact.”
― Henry James

“Don’t underestimate the value of irony—it is extremely valuable.”
― Henry James, Washington Square

“Things are always different than what they might be...If you wait for them to change, you will never do anything.”
― Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady

“...I am incapable of telling you not to feel. Feel, feel, I say - feel for all you're worth, and even if it half kills you, for that is the only way to live...”
― Henry James

“Money's a horrid thing to follow, but a charming thing to meet.”
― Henry James

“It is, I think, an indisputable fact that Americans are, as Americans, the most self- conscious people in the world, and the most addicted to the belief that the other nations are in a conspiracy to under-value them.”
― Henry James

“Deep experience is never peaceful.”
― Henry James

“There are two kinds of taste in the appreciation of imaginative literature: the taste for emotions of surprise and the taste for emotions of recognition.”
― 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

“...Wherever we go we carry this burden of our personal consciousness and wherever we step we open it out over our heads like a great baleful cotton umbrella to obstruct the prospect and obscure the light of heaven.”
― Henry James

“Things are always different from what they might be.”
― Henry James

“The real offense, as she ultimately perceived, was her having a mind of her own at all.”
― Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady

“I think patriotism is like charity -- it begins at home.”
― Henry James

“Anger does not last, that way, for years. But there are other things. Impressions last, when they have been strong.”
― Henry James

“Try to be one of those people on whom nothing is lost.”
― Henry James

“Criticism talks a good deal of nonsense, but even its nonsense is a useful force. It keeps the question of art before the world, insists upon its importance. ”
― Henry James

“Live all you can: It’s a mistake not to”
― Henry James

“There is no generosity without sacrifice.”
― Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady

“I might show it to you, but you'd never see it. The privilege isn't given to every one; it's not enviable. It has never been seen by a young, happy, innocent person like you. You must have suffered first, have suffered greatly, have gained some miserable knowledge. In that way your eyes are opened to it.”
― Henry James

“Live all you can, it's a mistake not to”
― Henry James

“There's no generosity without some sacrifice.”
― Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady

“Don't question your conscience so much--it will get out of tune like a strummed piano. Keep it for great occasions.”
― Henry James

“There's nothing so magnificent - for making others feel you - as to have no imagination.”
― Henry James

“... the high brutality of good intentions ...”
― Henry James

“The effort really to see and really to represent is no idle business, in face of the constant force that makes for muddlement.”
― Henry James