“I know of nothing useful in life except what is beautiful or creates beauty.”

— Henry Adams, Esther (1884), Ch. 4

About Henry Adams

1838 – 1918

American historian and writer, author of 'The Education of Henry Adams', which won the Pulitzer Prize after his death.

“Friends are born, not made.”

“One friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; three are hardly possible.”

“Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts.”

“Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity transient.”

“The virtue and beauty of human beings is to live naturally, ungoverned by external forces.”

“Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.”

“The great moral teachers of humanity were, in a way, artistic geniuses in the art of living.”

“At some point in life the world's beauty becomes enough. You don't need to photograph, paint or even remember it.”

“Life is earnest, art is gay.”