Henri-Frédéric Amiel quotes

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. (Henri-Frédéric Amiel)
To shun one's cross is to make it heavier. View quote
Henri-Frédéric Amiel
Society lives by faith, and develops by science. View quote
Henri-Frédéric Amiel
Uncertainty is the refuge of hope. View quote
Henri-Frédéric Amiel
Liberty, equality - bad principles The only true principle for humanity is justice and justice to the feeble is protection and kindness. View quote
Henri-Frédéric Amiel
Cleverness is serviceable for everything, sufficient for nothing. View quote
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. View quote
Henri-Frédéric Amiel
So long as a person is capable of self-renewal they are a living being. View quote
Henri-Frédéric Amiel
Work while you have the light. You are responsible for the talent that has been entrusted to you. View quote
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. View quote
Henri-Frédéric Amiel
Put personal ambition away from you, and then you will find consolation in living or in dying, whatever may happen to you. (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. View quote
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. View quote
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. View quote
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. View quote
Henri-Frédéric Amiel
The man who has no inner-life is a slave to his surroundings. View quote
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. View quote
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. View quote
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. View quote
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. View quote
Henri-Frédéric Amiel
There is no respect for others without humility in one's self. (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. View quote
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. View quote
Henri-Frédéric Amiel
Spite is anger which is afraid to show itself, it is an impotent fury conscious of its impotence. View quote
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. View quote
Henri-Frédéric Amiel