Henri Frederic Amiel Quotes
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.
Learn to... be what you are, and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not.
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.
Destiny has two ways of crushing us - by refusing our wishes and by fulfilling them.
In every loving woman there is a priestess of the past - a pious guardian of some affection, of which the object has disappeared.
Analysis kills spontaneity. The grain once ground into flour springs and germinates no more.
Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by silence.
You desire to know the art of living, my friend? It is contained in one phrase: make use of suffering.
Materialism coarsens and petrifies everything, making everything vulgar, and every truth false.
Work while you have the light. You are responsible for the talent that has been entrusted to you.
Learn to limit yourself; to content yourself with some definite work; dare to be what you are and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not; and to believe in your own individuality.
Conquering any difficulty always gives one a secret joy, for it means pushing back a boundary-line and adding to one's liberty.
Music is harmony, harmony is perfection, perfection is our dream, and our dream is heaven.
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.
Philosophy means the complete liberty of the mind, and therefore independence of all social, political or religious prejudice... It loves one thing only... truth.
Kindness is gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark journey with us.
Doing easily what others find difficult is talent; doing what is impossible for talent is genius.
Love is like swallowing hot chocolate before it has cooled off. It takes you by surprise at first, but keeps you warm for a long time.
For purposes of action nothing is more useful than narrowness of thought combined with energy of will.
To feel keenly the poetry of a morning's roses, one has to have just escaped from the claws of this vulture which we call sickness.
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 be always ready a man must be able to cut a knot, for everything cannot be untied.
Men don't achieve truth because they lack humility and love of truth. They won't criticize their own beliefs. Truth would overwhelm them.
Common sense is the measure of the possible; it is composed of experience and prevision; it is calculation applied to life.
True love is that which ennobles the personality, fortifies the heart, and sanctifies the existence.
The ideal doctor would be a man endowed with profound knowledge of life and of the soul, intuitively divining any suffering or disorder of whatever kind, and restoring peace by his mere presence.
A thousand things advance; nine hundred and ninety nine retreat; That is progress.
Tears are the symbol of the inability of the soul to restrain its emotion and retain its self command.
Blessed be childhood, which brings down something of heaven into the midst of our rough earthliness.
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.
Self-interest is but the survival of the animal in us. Humanity only begins for man with self-surrender.
We are never more discontented with others than when we are discontented with ourselves.
The test of every religious, political, or educational system is the man that it forms.
