Quotes
Quotes - Amiel
There is no repose for the mind except in the absolute; for feeling, except in the infinite; for the soul, except in the divine.
Only one thing is necessary: to possess God--All the senses, all the forces of the soul and of the spirit, all the exterior resources are so many open outlets to the Divinity; so many ways of tasting and of adoring God. We should be able to detach ourselves from all that is perishable and cling absolutely to the eternal and the absolute and enjoy the all else 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.
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 concentration of courage.
Truth is the secret of eloquence and of virtue, the basis of moral authority; it is the highest summit of art and of life.
Life is the apprenticeship to progressive renunciation, to the steady diminution of our claims, of our hopes, of our powers, of our liberty.
Doing easily what others find difficult is talent; doing what is impossible for talent is genius.
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.
The efficacy of religion lies precisely in what is not rational, philosophic or eternal; its efficacy lies in the unforeseen, the miraculous, the extraordinary. Thus religion attracts more devotion according as it demands more faith,--that is to say, as it becomes more incredible to the profane mind. The philosopher aspires to explain away all mysteries, to dissolve them into light. Mystery on the other hand is demanded and pursued by the religious instinct; mystery constitutes the essence of worship, the power of proselytism. When the "cross" became the "foolishness" of the cross, it took possession of the masses.
If ignorance and passion are the foes of popular morality, it must be confessed that moral indifference is the malady of the cultivated classes. The modern separation of enlightenment and virtue, of thought and conscience, of the intellectual aristocracy from the honest and common crowd is the greatest danger that can threaten liberty.
He who asks of life nothing but the improvement of his own nature...is less liable than anyone else to miss and waste life.
You desire to know the art of living, my friend? It is contained in one phrase: make use of suffering.
To know how to grow old is the master work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living.
Charm: the quality in others that makes us more satisfied with ourselves.
We will have no other master but our capriceâthat is to say, our evil self will have no God, and the foundation of our nature is seditious, impious, refractory, opposed to and contemptuous of all that tries to rule it, and therefore contrary to order, ungovernable and negative. It is this foundation which Christianity calls the natural man. But the savage which is within us, and constitutes the primitive stuff of us, must be disciplined and civilized in order to produce a man. And the man must be patiently cultivated to produce a wise man; and the wise man must be tested and tried if he is to become righteous, and the righteous man must have substituted the will of God for his individual will, if he is to become a saint.
Cleverness is serviceable for everything, sufficient for nothing.
Woman is the salvation or the destruction of the family. She carries its destiny in the folds of her mantle.
Destiny has two ways of crushing usâ by refusing our wishes and by fulfilling them.
Doing easily what others find it difficult is talent; doing what is impossible for talent is genius.
Doing easily what others find difficult is talent; doing what is impossible for talent is genius.
To live we must conquer incessantly, we must have the courage to be happy.
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-Frederic Amiel.
Man becomes man only by the intelligence, but he is man only by the heart. -Henri Frederic Amiel.
Doing easily what others find difficult is talent; doing what is impossible with talent is genius.
Man becomes man only by his intelligence, but he is man only by his heart.
The man who has no inner life is the slave of his surroundings.
