Henri Frederic Amiel Quotes

» Conquering any difficulty always gives one a secret joy, for it means pushing back a boundary-line and adding to one's liberty.

» The man who has no inner-life is a slave to his surroundings.

» Learn to... be what you are, and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not.

» Man becomes man only by his intelligence, but he is man only by his heart.

» I'm not interested in age. People who tell me their age are silly. You're as old as you feel.

» Everything you need for better future and success has already been written. And guess what? All you have to do is go to the library.

» True humility is contentment.

» We only understand that which already within us.

» Our duty is to be useful, not according to our desires but according to our powers.

» Charm is the quality in others, that makes us more satisfied with ourselves.

» Work while you have the light. You are responsible for the talent that has been entrusted to you.

» Doing easily what others find difficult is talent; doing what is impossible for talent is genius.

» Women wish to be loved without a why or a wherefore; not because they are pretty, or good, or well-bred, or graceful, or intelligent, but because they are themselves.

» To do easily what is difficult for others is the mark of talent. To do what is impossible for talent is the mark of genius.

» Action and faith enslave thought, both of them in order not be troubled or inconvenienced by reflection, criticism, and doubt.

» For purposes of action nothing is more useful than narrowness of thought combined with energy of will.

» Analysis kills spontaneity. The grain once ground into flour springs and germinates no more.

» Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude. Gratitude is the completion of thankfulness. Thankfulness may consist merely of words. Gratitude is shown in acts.

» It is not what he had, or even what he does which expresses the worth of a man, but what he is.

» Cleverness is serviceable for everything, sufficient for nothing.

» Common sense is calculation applied to life.

» Common sense is the measure of the possible; it is composed of experience and prevision; it is calculation applied to life.

» Pure truth cannot be assimilated by the crowd; it must be communicated by contagion.

» The best path through life is the highway.

» An error is the more dangerous in proportion to the degree of truth which it contains.

» Destiny has two ways of crushing us - by refusing our wishes and by fulfilling them.

» It is by teaching that we teach ourselves, by relating that we observe, by affirming that we examine, by showing that we look, by writing that we think, by pumping that we draw water into the well.

» To live we must conquer incessantly, we must have the courage to be happy.

» Every life is a profession of faith, and exercises an inevitable and silent influence.

» Clever people will recognize and tolerate nothing but cleverness.

» Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are travelling the dark journey with us. Oh be swift to love, make haste to be kind.

» In every loving woman there is a priestess of the past - a pious guardian of some affection, of which the object has disappeared.

» To marry unequally is to suffer equally.

» Materialism coarsens and petrifies everything, making everything vulgar, and every truth false.

» The fire which enlightens is the same fire which consumes.

» Society lives by faith, and develops by science.

» Order is a great person's need and their true well being.

» Order is power.

» The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides. Accept life, and you must accept regret.

» Sympathy is the first condition of criticism.

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

» There is no respect for others without humility in one's self.

» To shun one's cross is to make it heavier.

» Sacrifice, which is the passion of great souls, has never been the law of societies.

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

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

» The only substance properly so called is the soul.

» If nationality is consent, the state is compulsion.

» To know how to suggest is the great art of teaching. To attain it we must be able to guess what will interest; we must learn to read the childish soul as we might a piece of music. Then, by simply changing the key, we keep up the attraction and vary the song.

» Tears are the symbol of the inability of the soul to restrain its emotion and retain its self command.

» Thought is a kind of opium; it can intoxicate us, while still broad awake; it can make transparent the mountains and everything that exists.

» Action is coarsened thought; thought becomes concrete, obscure, and unconscious.

» So long as a person is capable of self-renewal they are a living being.

» 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.

» Uncertainty is the refuge of hope.

» Any landscape is a condition of the spirit.

» In health there is freedom. Health is the first of all liberties.

» Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by silence.

» The man who insists on seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides.

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

» Music is harmony, harmony is perfection, perfection is our dream, and our dream is heaven.

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

» Let us be true: this is the highest maxim of art and of life, the secret of eloquence and of virtue, and of all moral authority.

» Blessed be childhood, which brings down something of heaven into the midst of our rough earthliness.

» Action is only coarsened thought; thought becomes concrete, obscure, and unconscious.

» Tell me what you feel in your room when the full moon is shining in upon you and your lamp is dying out, and I will tell you how old you are, and I shall know if you are happy.

» Life is short and we never have enough time for gladdening the hearts of those who travel the way with us. Oh, be swift to love! Make haste to be kind.

» Our systems, perhaps, are nothing more than an unconscious apology for our faults, a gigantic scaffolding whose object is to hide from us our favorite sin.

Henri Frederic Amiel Quotes

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