Fareekoko > Fareekoko's Quotes

“But how could you live and have no story to tell?”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, White Nights

“Excellence does not require perfection.”
― Henry James

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

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

“It has made me better loving you... it has made me wiser, and easier, and brighter. I used to want a great many things before, and to be angry that I did not have them. Theoretically, I was satisfied. I flattered myself that I had limited my wants. But I was subject to irritation; I used to have morbid sterile hateful fits of hunger, of desire. Now I really am satisfied, because I can’t think of anything better. It’s just as when one has been trying to spell out a book in the twilight, and suddenly the lamp comes in. I had been putting out my eyes over the book of life, and finding nothing to reward me for my pains; but now that I can read it properly I see that it’s a delightful story.”
― Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady

“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.”
― Henry James, The Middle Years

“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.”
― Henry James

“I call people rich when they're able to meet the requirements of their imagination.”
― Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady

“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

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

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

“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

“The right time is any time that one is still so lucky as to have.”
― Henry James

“Don't pass it by--the immediate, the real, the only, the yours.”
― Henry James

“Don't mind anything any one tells you about any one else. Judge everyone and everything for yourself.”
― Henry James

“True happiness, we are told, consists in getting out of one's self; but the point is not only to get out - you must stay out; and to stay out you must have some absorbing errand.”
― Henry James, Roderick Hudson

“Whatever life you lead you must put your soul in it--to make any sort of success in it; and from the moment you do that it ceases to be romance, I assure you: it becomes grim reality! And you can't always please yourself; you must sometimes please other people. That, I admit, you're very ready to do; but there's another thing that's still more important--you must often displease others. You must always be ready for that--you must never shrink from it. That doesn't suit you at all--you're too fond of admiration, you like to be thought well of. You think we can escape disagreeable duties by taking romantic views--that's your great illusion, my dear. But we can't. You must be prepared on many occasions in life to please no one at all--not even yourself.”
― Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady

“You must save what you can of your life; you musn't lose it all simply because you've lost a part.”
― Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady

“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? … I haven’t done so enough before—and now I'm too old; too old at any rate for what I see. … What one loses one loses; make no mistake about that. … Still, we have the illusion of freedom; therefore don't be, like me, without the memory of that illusion. I was either, at the right time, too stupid or too intelligent to have it; I don’t quite know which. Of course at present I'm a case of reaction against the mistake. … Do what you like so long as you don't make my mistake. For it was a mistake. Live!”
― Henry James, The Ambassadors

“Deep experience is never peaceful.”
― Henry James

“She had an unequalled gift, usually pen in hand, of squeezing big mistakes into opportunities.”
― Henry James

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

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”
― George Eliot

“Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.”
― George Eliot, Impressions of Theophrastus Such

“It will never rain roses: when we want to have more roses, we must plant more roses.”
― George Eliot

“It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are still alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger for them.”
― George Eliot

“No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.”
― George Eliot, Daniel Deronda

“Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.”
― George Eliot, Adam Bede

“But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.”
― George Eliot, Middlemarch