Saturday, February 11, 2012

Henry James

The Bostonians - Henry James


“The simplest division it is possible to make of the human race is into the people who take things hard and the people who take them easy.” (Pg 9)

“Unfortunately men didn’t care for the truth, especially the new kinds, in proportion as they were good-looking.” (Pg 20)

“The position of women is to make fools of men.” (Pg 22)

“She had a general impression that when genius was original its temper was high.” (Pg 37)

“I am only myself, I only rise to the occasion, when I see prejudice, when I see bigotry, when I see injustice, when I see conservatism, massed before me like an army. Then I feel – I feel as I imagine Napoleon Bonaparte to have felt on the eve of one of his great victories. I must have unfriendly elements – I like to win them over.” (Pg 42)

“They pretend to admire us very much, but I should like them to admire us a little less and to trust us a little more.”
(Pg 57)

“She thought all wise people wanted great changes, but the votaries of change were not necessarily wise.” (Pg 77)

“The greatness of an evil didn’t matter if the remedy were equally great.” (Pg 82)

“It would be a very stupid world, after all, if we always knew what women were going to say.” (Pg 86)

“What women may be, or may not be, to each other, I won’t attempt just now to say; but what the truth may be to a human soul, I think perhaps even a woman may faintly suspect!” (Pg 86)

“It was notorious that great beauties, great geniuses, great characters, take their own times and places for coming into the world, leaving the gaping spectators to make them “fit in,” and holding from far-off ancestors, or even, perhaps, straight from the divine generosity, much more than from their ugly or stupid progenitors.” (Pg 107-108)

“Freedom was everywhere, if you only knew how to look for it.” (Pg 110)

“It was amazing how many ways men had of being apathetic.” (Pg 113)

“Yes, I am hard; perhaps I am cruel; but we must be hard if we wish to triumph.” (Pg 125)

“There are gentlemen in plenty who would be glad to stop your mouth by kissing you!” (Pg 128)

“I can imagine a man I should like very much, but I don’t like those I see. They seem to me poor creatures.” (Pg 130)

“He seemed to want so much to enjoy life, and to think you easily could if you would only let yourself go.” (Pg 138)

“Taste and art were good when they enlarged the mind, not when they narrowed it.” (Pg 140)

“The world was full of evil, but she was glad to have been born before it had been swept away, while it was still there to face, to give one a task and a reward.” (Pg 146)


“She now perceived that when spirit meets spirit there must  either be mutual absorption or a sharp concussion.”
(Pg 151)

“A figure is nothing without a setting.” (Pg 172)

“She answered that she didn’t care about ends, she cared about beginnings.” (Pg 184)

“I can’t sleep when I want to live.” (Pg 199)

“Wherever you go, madam, it will matter little what you carry. You will always carry your goodness.” (Pg 200)

“My dear madam, does a woman consist of nothing but her opinions?” (Pg 203)

“Do you suppose any journey is too great, too wearisome, when it’s a question of so great a pleasure?” (Pg 211)

“The suffering of women is the suffering of all humanity. Do you think any movement is going to stop that – or all the lectures from now to doomsday? We are born to suffer – and to bear it, like decent people.” (Pg 215)

“The bravest men have been afraid of women.” (Pg 219)

“There was one happiness they always had – that of having learned not to think about it too much, and to make the best of their circumstances.” (Pg 234)

“I never give a thing up till I have turned it over in every sense.” (Pg 283)

“When a girl is as charming, as original, as Miss Tarrant, it doesn’t in the least matter who she is; she makes herself the standard by which you measure her; she makes her own position.” (Pg 285)

“The human spirit has many variations, that the influence of the truth is great,  and that there are such things in life as happy surprises, quite as wel as disagreeable ones.”(Pg 286)

“Don’t attempt the impossible. You have got hold of a good thing; don’t spoil it by trying to stretch it too far. If you don’t take the better, perhaps you will have to take the worse.” (Pg 290)

“One must lead one’s own life; it was impossible to lead the life of another, especially when that other was so different, so arbitrary and unscrupulous.” (Pg 305)

“My success in life is one thing – my ambition is another!” (Pg 307)

“Nothing is more possible than that I may be poor and unheard-of all my days; and in that case no one but myself will know the visions of greatness I have stifled and buried.” (Pg 307)

“Were not our talents given us to use, and have we any right to smother them and deprive our fellow-creatures of such pleasure as they may confer?” (Pg 358)


“You mustn’t think there’s no progress because you don’t see it all right off; that’s what I wanted to say. It isn’t till you have gone a long way that you can feel what’s been done.” (Pg 367)

“Don’t you know that some minds, when they see a mystery, can’t rest till they clear it up?”( Pg 387)

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