Henri Frederic Amiel Quotes (125 Quotes)


    Mutual respect implies discretion and reserve even in love itself it means preserving as much liberty as possible to those whose life we share. We must distrust our instinct of intervention, for the desire to make one's own will prevail is often disguised


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

    You desire to know the art of living, my friend It is contained in one phrase make use of suffering.

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


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

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

    Melancholy is at the bottom of everything, just as at the end of all rivers is the sea. Can it be otherwise in a world where nothing lasts, where all that we have loved or shall love must die Is death, then, the secret of life The gloom of an eternal mourning enwraps, more or less closely, every serious and thoughtful soul, as night enwraps the universe.

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

    A philosopher is aspires to explain away all mysteries, to dissolve them into light.



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

    A man must be able to cut a knot, for everything cannot be untied he must know how to disengage what is essential from the detail in which it is enwrapped, for everything cannot be equally considered in a word, he must be able to simplify his duties, his business and his life.

    At the bottom of the modern man there is always a great thirst for self-forgetfulness, self-distraction ... and therefore he turns away from all those problems and abysses which might recall to him his own nothingness.

    He who floats with the current, who does not guide himself according to higher principles, who has no ideal, no convictions such a man is a mere article of the world's furniture a thing moved, instead of a living and moving being an echo, not a voice.

    We must dare to be happy, and dare to confess it, regarding ourselves always as the depositories, not as the authors of our own joy.

    Truth is the secret of eloquence and virtue, the basis of moral authority it is the highest summit of art and of life.

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

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

    Great men are true men, the men in whom nature has succeeded. They are not extraordinary - they are in the true order. It is the other species of men who are not what they ought to be.

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


    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.

    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.

    Every life is a possession of faith, and exercises an inevitable and silent propaganda.

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

    To win true peace, a man needs to feel himself directed, pardoned, and sustained by a supreme power, to feel himself in the right road, at the point where God would have him be - in order with God and the universe. This faith gives strength and calm.


    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.

    Mozart has the classic purity of light and the blue ocean Beethoven the romantic grandeur which belongs to the storms of air and sea, and while the soul of Mozart seems to dwell on the ethereal peaks of Olympus, that of Beethoven climbs shuddering the storm-beaten sides of a Sinai. Blessed be they both Each represents a moment of the ideal life, each does us good. Our love is due to both.

    There are 2 sorts of pride one in which we approve others, the other in which we cannot accept ourselves.




    Let mystery have its place in you do not be always turning up your whole soil with the ploughshare of self-examination, but leave a little fallow corner in your heart ready for any seed the winds may bring ...


    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.

    Wisdom consists in rising superior both to madness and to common sense, and in lending oneself to the universal delusion without becoming its dupe.

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

    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.

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


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


    A lively, disinterested, persistent liking for truth is extraordinarily rare. Action and faith enslave thought, both of them in order not to be troubled or inconvenienced by reflection, criticism or doubt.

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


    Heroism is the brilliant triumph of the soul over the flesh, that is to say over fear fear of poverty, of suffering, of calumny, of illness, of loneliness and of death. There is no real piety without heroism. Heroism is the dazzling and glorious con


    More Henri Frederic Amiel Quotations (Based on Topics)


    Life - Man - Soul - Mind - Truth - Love - Secrets - Art - Light - Thought & Thinking - Sense & Perception - Liberty & Freedom - Belief & Faith - Actions - Education - Intelligence - Power - Criticism - Mastery & Expertise - View All Henri Frederic Amiel Quotations

    Related Authors


    Lao Tzu - Heraclitus - George Santayana - David Hume - Zhuangzi - Thales - Swami Sivananda - Friedrich von Schelling - Charles de Montesquieu - Antisthenes


Page 1 of 3 1 2 3

Authors (by First Name)

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

Other Inspiring Sections