Henry Miller quotes

“The ordinary man is involved in action, the hero acts. An immense difference.”

— Henry Miller

“Any genuine philosophy leads to action and from action back again to wonder, to the enduring fact of mystery.”

— Henry Miller

“In the beginning was the Word. Man acts it out. He is the act, not the actor.”

— Henry Miller

“We live in the mind, in ideas, in fragments. We no longer drink in the wild outer music of the streets - we remember only.”

— Henry Miller

“Whatever I do is done out of sheer joy; I drop my fruits like a ripe tree. What the general reader or the critic makes of them is not my concern.”

— 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

“Life is constantly providing us with new funds, new resources, even when we are reduced to immobility. In life's ledger there is no such thing as frozen assets.”

— Henry Miller

“The real enemy can always be met and conquered, or won over. Real antagonism is based on love, a love which has not recognized itself.”

— Henry Miller

“Until we accept the fact that life itself is founded in mystery, we shall learn nothing.”

— Henry Miller

“The tragedy of it is that nobody sees the look of desperation on my face. Thousands and thousands of us, and we're passing one another without a look of recognition.”

— Henry Miller

“If men cease to believe that they will one day become gods then they will surely become worms.”

— Henry Miller

“Man has demonstrated that he is master of everything except his own nature.”

— Henry Miller

“One has to be a lowbrow, a bit of a murderer, to be a politician, ready and willing to see people sacrificed, slaughtered, for the sake of an idea, whether a good one or a bad one.”

— Henry Miller

“Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.”

— Henry Miller

“I have never been able to look upon America as young and vital but rather as prematurely old, as a fruit which rotted before it had a chance to ripen.”

— Henry Miller

“Life has to be given a meaning because of the obvious fact that it has no meaning.”

— Henry Miller

“The legal system is often a mystery, and we, its priests, preside over rituals baffling to everyday citizens.”

— Henry Miller

“The man who is forever disturbed about the condition of humanity either has no problems of his own or has refused to face them.”

— Henry Miller

“Life, as it is called, is for most of us one long postponement.”

— Henry Miller

“Analysis brings no curative powers in its train; it merely makes us conscious of the existence of an evil, which, oddly enough, is consciousness.”

— Henry Miller

“I see America spreading disaster. I see America as a black curse upon the world. I see a long night settling in and that mushroom which has poisoned the world withering at the roots.”

— Henry Miller

“Life is 440 horsepower in a 2-cylinder engine.”

— Henry Miller

“Music is a beautiful opiate, if you don't take it too seriously.”

— Henry Miller

“Sin, guilt, neurosis; they are one and the same, the fruit of the tree of knowledge.”

— Henry Miller

“Actors die so loud.”

— Henry Miller

“I have always looked upon decay as being just as wonderful and rich an expression of life as growth.”

— Henry Miller

“In expanding the field of knowledge we but increase the horizon of ignorance.”

— Henry Miller

“In the attempt to defeat death man has been inevitably obliged to defeat life, for the two are inextricably related. Life moves on to death, and to deny one is to deny the other.”

— Henry Miller

“Instead of asking 'How much damage will the work in question bring about?' why not ask 'How much good? How much joy?'”

— Henry Miller

“It does me good to write a letter which is not a response to a demand, a gratuitous letter, so to speak, which has accumulated in me like the waters of a reservoir.”

— Henry Miller