Henry Miller

Henry Valentine Miller

1891-1980, American Writer

Acceptance
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.

Age / Ageing
Youth has to do with spirit, not age. Men of 70 or 60 are often more youthful than the young. Theirs is the real youth.

Art
Art is only a means to life, to the life more abundant. It merely points the way … in becoming an end, it defeats itself.
The Wisdom of the Heart

The new work of art does not consist of making a living or producing an objet d'art or in self-therapy, but in finding a new soul. The new era is the era of spiritual creativity … and soul-making.
Ibid.

Attention / Awareness
The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.

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

Being / Essence / Soul
It is with the soul that we grasp the essence of another human being, not with the mind, not even with the heart.
The Books in My Life