Henry Miller quotes - page 11

I will never again go to people under false pretenses even if it is to give them the Holy Bible. I will never again sell anything, even if I have to starve. I am going home now and I will sit down and really write about people. (Henry Miller)
Fame is an illusive thing -- here today, gone tomorrow. The fickle, shallow mob raises its heroes to the pinnacle of approval today and hurls them into oblivion tomorrow at the slightest whim cheers today, hisses tomorrow utter forgetfulness in a few months. View quote
Henry Miller
The word ''civilization'' to my mind is coupled with death. When I use the word, I see civilization as a crippling, thwarting thing, a stultifying thing. For me it was always so. I don't believe in the golden ages, you see... civilization is the arteriosclerosis of culture. View quote
Henry Miller
Civilization is, alcohol, engines of war, prostitution, machines and machine slaves, low wages, bad food, bad taste, prisons, reformatories, lunatic asylums, divorce, perversion, brutal sports, s, infanticide, cinema, quackery, demagogy, strikes, lockouts, revolutions, putsches, colonization, electric chairs, guillotines, sabotage, floods, famine, disease, gangsters, money barons, horse racing, fashion shows, poodle dogs, chow dogs, Siamese cats, s, pessaries, syphilis, gonorrhea, insanity, neuroses, etc.. View quote
Henry Miller
The loss of sex polarity is part and parcel of the larger disintegration, the reflex of the soul's death, and coincident with the disappearance of great men, great deeds, great causes, great wars, etc. View quote
Henry Miller
Men are not suffering from the lack of good literature, good art, good theatre, good music, but from that which has made it impossible for these to become manifest. In short, they are suffering from the silent shameful conspiracy (the more shameful since it is unacknowledged) which has bound them together as enemies of art and artists. View quote
Henry Miller
One can see now how the idea of heaven takes hold of men's consciousness, how it gains ground even when all the props have been knocked from under it. There must be another world beside this swamp in which everything is dumped pell-mell. It's hard to imagine what it can be like, this heaven that men dream about. View quote
Henry Miller
Man torturing man is a fiend beyond description. You turn a corner in the dark and there he is. You congeal into a bundle of inanimate fear. You become the very soul of anesthesia. But there is no escaping him. It is your turn now... View quote
Henry Miller
The wallpaper with which the men of science have covered the world of reality is falling to tatters. The grand whorehouse which they have made of life requires no decoration; it is essential that only the drains function adequately. Beauty, that feline beauty that has us by the balls in America, is finished. View quote
Henry Miller
When into the womb of time everything is again withdrawn chaos will be restored and chaos is the score upon which reality is written. View quote
Henry Miller
The world itself is pregnant with failure, is the perfect manifestation of imperfection, of the consciousness of failure. (Henry Miller)
All the men she's been with and now you, just you, and the barges going by, masts and hulls, the whole damned current of life flowing through you, through her, through all the guys behind you and after you, the flowers and the birds and the sun streaming in and the fragrance of it choking you, annihilating you. View quote
Henry Miller
Greece is the home of the gods they may have died but their presence still makes itself felt. The gods were of human proportion they were created out of the human spirit. View quote
Henry Miller
The city is loveliest when the sweet death racket begins. Her own life lived in defiance of nature, her electricity, her frigidaires, her soundproof walls, the glint of lacquered nails, the plumes that wave across the corrugated sky. Here in the coffin depths grow the everlasting flowers sent by telegraph. View quote
Henry Miller
Until he man has become fully human, until he learns to conduct himself as a member of the earth, he will continue to create gods who will destroy him. The tragedy of Greece lies not in the destruction of a great culture but in the abortion of a great vision. View quote
Henry Miller
All my good reading, you might say, was done in the toilet. There are passages in Ulysses which can be read only in the toilet - if one wants to extract the full flavor of their content. View quote
Henry Miller
The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware. In this state of god-like awareness one sings; in this realm the world exists as poem. View quote
Henry Miller
All I ask of life, he says, is a bunch of books, a bunch of dreams, and a bunch of cunt. View quote
Henry Miller
The great ones do not set up offices, charge fees, give lectures, or write books. Wisdom is silent, and the most effective propaganda for truth is the force of personal example. The great ones attract disciples, lesser figures whose mission is to preach and to teach. These are gospelers who, unequal to the highest task, spend their lives in converting others. The great ones are indifferent, in the profoundest sense. They don't ask you to believe: they electrify you by their behavior. They are the awakeners. View quote
Henry Miller
No life in the whole history of man has been so misinterpreted, so woefully misunderstood as Christ's. View quote
Henry Miller
All about us we see a world in revolt; but revolt is negative, a mere finishing-off process. In the midst of destruction we carry with us also our creation, our hopes, our strength, our urge to be fulfilled. (Henry Miller)
One can be absolutely truthful and sincere even though admittedly the most outrageous liar. View quote
Henry Miller
They never opened the door which leads to the soul. View quote
Henry Miller
The trouble with Buddhism?-- in order to free oneself of all desire, one has to desire to do so. View quote
Henry Miller
The Battle is endless...we who babble and froth at the mouth have been at it since eternity. View quote
Henry Miller