Art requires, above all things, a suppression of self, a subordination of one's self to an idea. — Henry James Copy Share Image
We must grant the artist his subject, his idea, his donn´e: our criticism is applied only to what he makes of it. — Henry James Copy Share Image
Art derives a considerable part of its beneficial exercise from flying in the face of presumptions. — Henry James Copy Share Image
The artist is present in every page of every book from which he sought so assiduously to eliminate himself. — Henry James Copy Share Image
The artist beholds in nature more than she herself Nature is conscious of. — Henry James Copy Share Image
“He had come abroad to enjoy the Flemish painters and all others; but what fair-tressed saint of Van Eyck or Memling was… — Henry James Copy Share Image
Art does not lie in copying nature.- Nature furnishes the material by means of which is to express a beauty still unexpressed… — Henry James Copy Share Image
It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance, for our consideration and application of these things, and I know of… — Henry James Copy Share Image
If the artist is necessarily sensitive, does that sensitiveness form in its essence a state constantly liable to shade off into the… — Henry James Copy Share Image
Really, universally, relations stop nowhere, and the exquisite problem of the artist is eternally but to draw, by a geometry of his… — Henry James Copy Share Image
“Criticism talks a good deal of nonsense, but even its nonsense is a useful force. It keeps the question of art before… — Henry James Copy Share Image
Nothing, of course, will ever take the place of the good old fashion of 'liking' a work of art or not liking… — Henry James Copy Share Image
If we pretend to respect the artist at all we must allow him his freedom of choice , in the face, in… — Henry James Copy Share Image
The critical sense is so far from frequent that it is absolutely rare, and the possession of the cluster of qualities that… — Henry James Copy Share Image
“Between nine and ten, at last, in the high clear picture--he was moving in these days, as in a gallery, from clever… — Henry James Copy Share Image
“He was an awkward mixture of strong moral impulse and restless aesthetic curiosity, and yet he would have made a most ineffective… — Henry James Copy Share Image
Though there are some disagreeable things in Venice there is nothing so disagreeable as the visitors. — Henry James Copy Share
“In literature we move through a blest world in which we know nothing except by style, but in which everything is saved by it.” — Henry James Copy Share
“I shall stay here as long as I may, I don't want to think — I needn't think. I don't care for anything but… — Henry James Copy Share
“...It often seemed to her that she thought too much about herself, you could have made her blush any day of the year, by… — Henry James Copy Share
“I reflected acutely that the sense of such differences, such superiorities of quality, always, on the part of the majority—which could include even stupid,… — Henry James Copy Share
“She had had a real fright but had fallen back to earth. The odd thing was that in her fall her fear too had… — Henry James Copy Share
“She had never met a woman who had less of that fault which is the principal obstacle to friendship - the air of reproducing… — Henry James Copy Share
If you have work to do, don't wait to feel like it; set to work and you will feel like it. — Henry James Copy Share
It is no wonder he wins every game. He has never done a thing in his life exept play games — Henry James Copy Share
Make (the reader) think the evil, make him think it for himself, and you are released from weak specifications. My values are positively all… — Henry James Copy Share
“It was the air she wanted and the world she would now exclusively choose; the quiet chambers, nobly overwhelming, rich but slightly veiled, opened… — Henry James Copy Share
