Quotes by Henri Frederic Amiel

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Cleverness is serviceable for everything, sufficient for nothing.

Henri Frederic Amiel

If nationality is consent, the state is compulsion.

Henri Frederic Amiel

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

Henri Frederic Amiel

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.

Henri Frederic Amiel

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

Henri Frederic Amiel

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

Henri Frederic Amiel

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

Henri Frederic Amiel

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

Henri Frederic Amiel

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.

Henri Frederic Amiel

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

We only understand that which already is within us.

Henri Frederic Amiel

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

Henri Frederic Amiel

The only substance properly so called is the soul.

Henri Frederic Amiel

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

Henri Frederic Amiel

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

Henri Frederic Amiel

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

Henri Frederic Amiel

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

Henri Frederic Amiel

To marry unequally is to suffer equally.

Henri Frederic Amiel

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

Henri Frederic Amiel

Sympathy is the first condition of criticism.

Henri Frederic Amiel

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.

Henri Frederic Amiel