We work in the dark - we do what we can - we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.

Henry James
About This Quote

When Thomas Edison said, “We work in the dark - we do what we can - we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art,” he was speaking about the power of perseverance. More specifically, the power to persevere no matter how bad the circumstances seem. It takes a lot of discipline and hard work to keep going even when you’re starting from nothing.

Source: The Middle Years

Some Similar Quotes
  1. Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something. - Rainbow Rowell

  2. It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done. - Vincent Van Gogh

  3. Any fool can be happy. It takes a man with real heart to make beauty out of the stuff that makes us weep. - Clive Barker

  4. Art and love are the same thing: It’s the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you. - Chuck Klosterman

  5. There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people. - Vincent Van Gogh

More Quotes By Henry James
  1. It has made me better loving you.. it has made me wiser, and easier, and brighter. I used to want a great many things before, and to be angry that I did not have them. Theoretically, I was satisfied. <span style="margin:15px; display:block"></span>I flattered myself that...

  2. I'm yours for ever--for ever and ever. Here I stand; I'm as firm as a rock. If you'll only trust me, how little you'll be disappointed. Be mine as I am yours.

  3. Live all you can: it's a mistake not to. It doesn't matter what you do in particular, so long as you have had your life. If you haven't had that, what have you had?

  4. True happiness, we are told, consists in getting out of one's self; but the point is not only to get out - you must stay out; and to stay out you must have some absorbing errand.

  5. She took refuge on the firm ground of fiction, through which indeed there curled the blue river of truth.

Related Topics