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.
— Henry Miller
Any genuine philosophy leads to action and from action back again to wonder, to the enduring fact of mystery.
The world is not to be put in order; the world is order, incarnate. It is for us to harmonize with this order.
Life is constantly providing us with new funds, new resources, even when we are reduced to immobility. In life's ledger there is no such thing as frozen assets.
Every man with a bellyful of the classics is an enemy to the human race.
I see America spreading disaster. I see America as a black curse upon the world. I see a long night settling in and that mushroom which has poisoned the world withering at the roots.
One of the reasons why so few of us ever act, instead of react, is because we are continually stifling our deepest impulses.
If we are always arriving and departing, it is also true that we are eternally anchored. One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.
Chaos is the score upon which reality is written.
Confusion is a word we have invented for an order which is not understood.
True strength lies in submission which permits one to dedicate his life, through devotion, to something beyond himself.
The legal system is often a mystery, and we, its priests, preside over rituals baffling to everyday citizens.
One has to be a lowbrow, a bit of a murderer, to be a politician, ready and willing to see people sacrificed, slaughtered, for the sake of an idea, whether a good one or a bad one.
I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive.
Moralities, ethics, laws, customs, beliefs, doctrines - these are of trifling import. All that matters is that the miraculous become the norm.
We live in the mind, in ideas, in fragments. We no longer drink in the wild outer music of the streets - we remember only.
Imagination is the voice of daring. If there is anything Godlike about God it is that. He dared to imagine everything.
The man who is forever disturbed about the condition of humanity either has no problems of his own or has refused to face them.
Art is only a means to life, to the life more abundant. It is not in itself the life more abundant. It merely points the way, something which is overlooked not only by the public, but very often by the artist himself. In becoming an end it defeats itself.
I have never been able to look upon America as young and vital but rather as prematurely old, as a fruit which rotted before it had a chance to ripen.
The ordinary man is involved in action, the hero acts. An immense difference.
Our own physical body possesses a wisdom which we who inhabit the body lack. We give it orders which make no sense.
One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.
If there is to be any peace it will come through being, not having.
Whatever there be of progress in life comes not through adaptation but through daring.
Whatever I do is done out of sheer joy; I drop my fruits like a ripe tree. What the general reader or the critic makes of them is not my concern.
The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.
Every man has his own destiny: the only imperative is to follow it, to accept it, no matter where it leads him.
The great work must inevitably be obscure, except to the very few, to those who like the author himself are initiated into the mysteries. Communication then is secondary: it is perpetuation which is important. For this only one good reader is necessary.
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, as it is called, is for most of us one long postponement.
Music is a beautiful opiate, if you don't take it too seriously.
We do not talk - we bludgeon one another with facts and theories gleaned from cursory readings of newspapers, magazines and digests.
Actors die so loud.
Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.
There is no salvation in becoming adapted to a world which is crazy.
Until we accept the fact that life itself is founded in mystery, we shall learn nothing.
The concert is a polite form of self induced torture.
The one thing we can never get enough of is love. And the one thing we never give enough is love.
Life is 440 horsepower in a 2-cylinder engine.
In expanding the field of knowledge we but increase the horizon of ignorance.
In this age, which believes that there is a short cut to everything, the greatest lesson to be learned is that the most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest.
