"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."

Miller, Henry on acceptance
43 fans of this quote   

"Facts are counterrevolutionary."

Hoffer, Eric on facts   

"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying."

Allen, Woody on immortality
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"He who is not busy being born is busy dying."

Dylan, Bob on life
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"This land is your land and this land is my land, sure, but the world is run by those that never listen to music anyway."

Dylan, Bob on land   

"Despite everybody who has been born and has died, the world has just gone on. I mean, look at Napoleon --but we went right on. Look at Harpo Marx --the world went around, it didn't stop for a second. It's sad but true. John Kennedy, right?"

Dylan, Bob on greatness
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"I consider it useless and tedious to represent what exists, because nothing that exists satisfies me. Nature is ugly, and I prefer the monsters of my fancy to what is positively trivial."

Baudelaire, Charles on fantasy
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"Show me a man who lives alone and has a perpetually clean kitchen, and 8 times out of 9 I'll show you a man with detestable spiritual qualities."

Bukowski, Charles on bachelor
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"Every man with a bellyful of the classics is an enemy to the human race."

Miller, Henry on books - classics
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"We have two American flags always: one for the rich and one for the poor. When the rich fly it means that things are under control; when the poor fly it means danger, revolution, anarchy."

Miller, Henry on society
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"Why are we so full of restraint? Why do we not give in all directions? Is it fear of losing ourselves? Until we do lose ourselves there is no hope of finding ourselves."

Miller, Henry on self-control
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"The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware."

Miller, Henry on war
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"The artist is the opposite of the politically minded individual, the opposite of the reformer, the opposite of the idealist. The artist does not tinker with the universe; he recreates it out of his own experience and understanding of life."

Miller, Henry on art
4 fans of this quote   

"Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music -- the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself."

Miller, Henry on passion
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"To those who despair of everything reason cannot provide a faith, but only passion, and in this case it must be the same passion that lay at the root of the despair, namely humiliation and hatred."

Camus, Albert on despair
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