Henri Frédéric Amiel (1821–81) was a Swiss philosopher, poet and critic. Born in Geneva in 1821, he was descended from a Huguenot family driven to Switzerland by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
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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.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Greatness & Great Things, Greatness
Action and faith enslave thought, both of them in order not be troubled or inconvenienced by reflection, criticism, and doubt.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Action(s), Action
To live we must conquer incessantly, we must have the courage to be happy.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Courage, Happiness
It is not what he has, or even what he does which expresses the worth of a man, but what he is.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Man becomes man only by his intelligence, but he is man only by his heart.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Intelligence, Instincts
Our duty is to be useful, not according to our desires, but according to our powers.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Tears are the symbol of the inability of the soul to restrain its emotion and retain its self command.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Tears, Crying
How, then, find the courage for action? By slipping a little into unconsciousness, spontaneity, instinct which holds one to the earth and dictates the relatively good and useful … By accepting the human condition more simply, and candidly, by dreading troubles less, calculating less, hoping more.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Secrets of Success, Instincts, Courage
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.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Belief
So long as a person is capable of self-renewal, he is a living being.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Love, Change
Our dependence outweighs our independence, for we are independent only in our desire, while we are dependent on our health, on nature, on society, on everything in us and outside us.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Man
Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by silence.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
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.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Man never knows what he wants; he aspires to penetrate mysteries and as soon as he has, he wants to reestablish them. Ignorance irritates him and knowledge cloys.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Self-Discovery
Truth is the secret of eloquence and of virtue, the basis of moral authority; it is the highest summit of art and of life.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Authority, Integrity, Truth
Self-interest is but the survival of the animal in us. Humanity only begins for man with self-surrender.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Self-interest, Selfishness
Every dawn signs a new contract with existence.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Oh, order! Material order, intellectual order, moral order! What a comfort and strength, and what an economy! To know where we are going and what we want; that is order. To keep ones word, to do the right thing, and at the right time: more order. To have everything under ones hand, to put ones whole army through its manoeuvres, to work with all ones resources: still order. To discipline ones habits and efforts and wishes, to organize ones life and distribute ones time, to measure ones duties and assert ones rights, to put ones capital and resources, ones talents and opportunities to profit: again and always order. Order is light, peace, inner freedom, self-determination: it is power. To conceive order, to return to order, to realize order in oneself, around oneself, by means of oneself, this is aesthetic and moral beauty, it is well-being, it is what ought to be.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
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