Henry Miller

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.

Living apart and at peace with myself, I came to realize more vividly the meaning of the doctrine of acceptance. To refrain from giving advice, to refrain from meddling in the affairs of others, to refrain, even though the motives be the highest, from tampering with another's way of life so simple, yet so difficult for an active spirit. Hands off

A man of good will with a little effort and belief in his own powers can enjoy a deep, tranquil, rich life provided he go his own way. He need not and should not think of making a good living, but rather of creating a good life for himself. To live one's own life is still the best way of life, always was, and always will be.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

The life of a creator is not the only life nor perhaps the most interesting which a man leads. There is a time for play and a time for work, a time for creation and a time for lying fallow. And there is a time, glorious too in its own way, when one scarcely exists, when one is a complete void. I mean when boredom seems the very stuff of life.

What we all hope in reaching for a book, is to meet a man of our own heart, to experience tragedies and delights which we ourselves lack the courage to invite, to dream dreams which will render life more hallucinating, perhaps also to discover a philosophy of life which will make us more adequate in meeting the trials and ordeals which beset us. To merely add to our store of knowledge or improve our culture, whatever that may mean, seems worthless to me.

If there is to be any peace it will come through being, not having.

Any genuine philosophy leads to action and from action back again to wonder, to enduring fact of mystery.