Henri Quotes

The woman from the depths of her rags, a waif, a martyr — smiled. She must have a divine heart to be so tired and yet smile.

Self-interest is but the survival of the animal in us. Humanity only begins for man with self-surrender.

whatever our ignorance left to itself, and whatever the wounds that other human beings are, we ought to study ourselves with a sort of devotion.

Yes, it's a competitive world, but where is your heart?

Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing-sicknes s, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death--can take that love away.

There is nothing [that] disarms us like laughter.

There is nothing so important in the family as the sacred quality of the meal.

What is important is how well we love. God will make our love fruitful, whether we see that fruitfulness or not.

Politeness requires this thing; decorum that; ceremony has its forms, and fashion its laws, and these must always follow, never the promptings of our own nature.

Hatred as well as love, renders its votaries credulous.

To talk about photos rather than making them seems idiotic to me. It's as though I went on and on about a woman I adored instead of making love to her.

Nobody takes photographs, photographs take you.

Who can take away suffering without entering it?

Photography and writing are marvelous distractions from painting. I might even have found movies more interesting than photography. I tried it a bit, but not enough.

There are pictures that manifest education and there are pictures that manifest love.

My curves are not crazy.

I would hope that Europe always has a privileged relationship with the United States. The alternatives are not attractive.

I don't really believe in dialogue; I am too Nietzschean for that. We need to have a warrior conception of philosophy.

Prayer is first of all listening to God. It's openness. God is always speaking; he's always doing something.

My choice of colors does not rest on any scientific theory, it is based on observation, on feeling, on the experience of my sensibility.

The test of every religious, political, or educational system is the man that it forms.

Dreams are excursions into the limbo of things, a semi-deliverance from the human prison.

Learning to weep, learning to keep vigil, learning to wait for the dawn. Perhaps this is what it means to be human.

I am curious about color as one would be visiting a new country, because I have never concentrated so closely on color expression. Up to now I have waited at the gates of the temple.

I am neither an economist nor a photographer of monuments, and I am not much of a journalist either. What I am trying to do more than anything else is to observe life.

The beatitudes say, "Blessed are the poor". They don't say, "Blessed are those who care for the poor."

Geometry is not true, it is advantageous.

We are never more discontented with others than when we are discontented with ourselves.

Joy and laughter are the gifts of living in the presence of God and trusting that tomorrow is not worth worrying about.

If I were an antiquarian, I would have eyes only for old stuff, but I am a historian. Therefore, I love life.

The aim of science is not things themselves, as the dogmatists in their simplicity imagine, but the relation between things.

Prayer and action...can never be seen as contradictory or mutually exclusive. Prayer without action grows into powerless pietism, and action without prayer degenerates into questionable manipulation.

Actually, I'm not all that interested in the subject of photography. Once the picture is in the box, I'm not all that interested in what happens next. Hunters, after all, aren't cooks.

The fire which enlightens is the same fire which consumes.

You can love a woman. To admire her is hard. You are not dealing with something important.

God's Kingdom is a place of abundance where every generous act overflows its original bounds and becomes part of the unbounded grace of God at work in the world.

As the excited passions of hostile people are of themselves a powerful enemy, both the general and his government should use their best efforts to allay them.

He who asks of life nothing but the improvement of his own nature... is less liable than anyone else to miss and waste life.

The common people have no history: persecuted by the present, they cannot think of preserving the memory of the past.

It is only after years of preparation that the young artist should touch color - not color used descriptively, that is, but as a means of personal expression.

Art is, after all, only a trace – like a footprint which shows that one has walked bravely and in great happiness.

All real works of art look as though they were done in joy.

Society lives by faith, and develops by science.

Without passion man is a mere latent force and possibility, like the flint which awaits the shock of the iron before it can give forth its spark.

Sacrifice still exists everywhere, and everywhere the elect of each generation suffers for the salvation of the rest.

The real enemies of our life are the 'oughts' and the 'ifs.' They pull us backward into the unalterable past and forward into the unpredictable future. But real life takes place in the here and now.

What interests me most is neither still life nor landscape, but the human figure.

My writing has developed drastically . The Return of the Prodigal Son is the most important thing I've done, and my most mature book.

I'm growing old, I delight in the past.

Woman is the salvation or the destruction of the family. She carries its destiny in the folds of her mantle.