Henri-Frédéric Amiel quotes

Henri-Frédéric Amiel was a Swiss philosopher, poet, and critic, renowned for his introspective writings. His best-known work is the "Journal Intime," which offers profound reflections on philosophy and the human condition. He remains an influential figure in European intellectual and literary circles. Here are 157 of his quotes:

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

Henri-Frédéric Amiel

Society lives by faith, and develops by science.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel

Uncertainty is the refuge of hope.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel

Liberty, equality - bad principles The only true principle for humanity is justice and justice to the feeble is protection and kindness.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel

Cleverness is serviceable for everything, sufficient for nothing.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel

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.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel

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

Henri-Frédéric Amiel

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

Henri-Frédéric Amiel

Life is the apprenticeship to progressive renunciation, to the steady diminution of our claims, of our hopes, of our powers, of our liberty.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel

At bottom there is but one subject of study: the forms and metamorphoses of mind. All other subjects may be reduced to that; all other studies bring us back to this study.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel

To be misunderstood even by those whom one loves is the cross and bitterness of life. It is the secret of that sad and melancholy smile on the lips of great men which so few understand; it is the cruelest trial reserved for self-devotion; it is what must have oftenest wrung the heart of the Son of man; and if God could suffer, it would be the wound we should be forever inflicting upon Him. He also - He above all - is the great misunderstood, the least comprehended.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel

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

Henri-Frédéric Amiel

I have never felt any inward assurance of genius, or any presentiment of glory or of happiness. I have never seen myself in imagination great or famous, or even a husband, a father, an influential citizen. This indifference to the future, this absolute self-distrust, are, no doubt, to be taken as signs. What dreams I have are all vague and indefinite; I ought not to live, for I am now scarcely capable of living.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel

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

Henri-Frédéric Amiel

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.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel

The spirit of sarcasm lives and thrives in the midst of universal wreck; its balls are enchanted and itself invulnerable, and it braves retaliations and reprisals because itself is a mere flash, a bodiless and magical nothing.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel

It gives liberty and breadth to thought, to learn to judge our own epoch from the point of view of universal history, history from the point of view of geological periods, geology from the point of view of astronomy.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel

A man without passion is only a latent force, only a possibility, like a stone waiting for the blow from the iron to give forth sparks.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel

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

Henri-Frédéric 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-Frédéric Amiel

Spite is anger which is afraid to show itself, it is an impotent fury conscious of its impotence.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel

There is but one thing needful - to possess God. All our senses, all our powers of mind and soul, all our external resources, are so many ways of approaching the divinity, so many modes of tasting and of adoring God. We must learn to detach ourselves from all that is capable of being lost, to bind ourselves absolutely only to what is absolute and eternal, and to enjoy the rest as a loan, as a usufruct.... To worship, to comprehend, to receive, to feel, to give, to act: this our law, our duty, our happiness, our heaven.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel