Henri Frederic 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.

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.

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

Charm is the quality in others, that makes us more satisfied with ourselves.

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.

We only understand that which already within us.

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

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.

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

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

Pure truth cannot be assimilated by the crowd; it must be communicated by contagion.

Let us be true: this is the highest maxim of art and of life, the secret of eloquence and of virtue, and of all moral authority.

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

Women wish to be loved without a why or a wherefore; not because they are pretty, or good, or well-bred, or graceful, or intelligent, but because they are themselves.

Conquering any difficulty always gives one a secret joy, for it means pushing back a boundary-line and adding to one’s liberty.

Sympathy is the first condition of criticism.

To marry unequally is to suffer equally.

Common sense is the measure of the possible; it is composed of experience and prevision; it is calculation applied to life.

The best path through life is the highway.

If nationality is consent, the state is compulsion.

Analysis kills spontaneity. The grain once ground into flour springs and germinates no more.

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

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

The only substance properly so called is the soul.

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

Order is a great person’s need and their true well being.

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

Man becomes man only by his intelligence, but he is man only by his heart.

In health there is freedom. Health is the first of all liberties.

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

True humility is contentment.

Learn to… be what you are, and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not.

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

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.

I’m not interested in age. People who tell me their age are silly. You’re as old as you feel.

Any landscape is a condition of the spirit.

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

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

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

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.

Society lives by faith, and develops by science.

Clever people will recognize and tolerate nothing but cleverness.

Uncertainty is the refuge of hope.

Self-interest is but the survival of the animal in us. Humanity only begins for man with self-surrender.

Sacrifice still exists everywhere, and everywhere the elect of each generation suffers for the salvation of the rest.

Doing easily what others find difficult is talent; doing what is impossible for talent is genius.

Cleverness is serviceable for everything, sufficient for nothing.

To live we must conquer incessantly, we must have the courage to be happy.

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

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

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

Common sense is calculation applied to life.

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

Order is power.

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

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

Action and faith enslave thought, both of them in order not be troubled or inconvenienced by reflection, criticism, and doubt.

The fire which enlightens is the same fire which consumes.

Woman is the salvation or the destruction of the family. She carries its destiny in the folds of her mantle.

Tears are the symbol of the inability of the soul to restrain its emotion and retain its self command.

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.

The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides. Accept life, and you must accept regret.

Every life is a profession of faith, and exercises an inevitable and silent influence.

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

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

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.