Henri-Frédéric Amiel Browse All Authors Top 17 quotes by Henri-Frédéric Amiel Action is coarsened thought; thought becomes concrete, obscure, and unconscious. Henri-Frédéric Amiel Every life is a profession of faith, and exercises an inevitable and silent influence. Henri-Frédéric Amiel An error is the more dangerous in proportion to the degree of truth which it contains. Henri-Frédéric Amiel Common sense is calculation applied to life. Henri-Frédéric Amiel 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-Frédéric Amiel Analysis kills spontaneity. Henri-Frédéric Amiel The best path through life is the highway. Henri-Frédéric Amiel Tears are the symbol of the inability of the soul to restrain its emotion and retain its self command. Henri-Frédéric Amiel Self-interest is but the survival of the animal in us. Humanity only begins for man with self-surrender. Henri-Frédéric Amiel Learn to limit yourself, to content yourself with some definite thing, and some definite work; dare to be what you are, and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not and to believe in your own individuality. Henri-Frédéric Amiel Truth is the secret of eloquence and of virtue, the basis of moral authority; it is the highest summit of art and life. Henri-Frédéric Amiel Woman is the salvation or the destruction of the family. She carries its destiny in the folds of her mantle. 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 You desire to know the art of living, my friend? It is contained in one phrase: make use of suffering. Henri-Frédéric Amiel To live we must conquer incessantly, we must have the courage to be happy. Henri-Frédéric Amiel Mozart has the classic purity of light and the blue ocean; Beethoven the romantic grandeur which belongs to the storms of air and sea, and while the soul of Mozart seems to dwell on the ethereal peaks of Olympus, that of Beethoven climbs shuddering the storm-beaten sides of a Sinai. Blessed be they both! Each represents a moment of the ideal life, each does us good. Our love is due to both. Henri-Frédéric Amiel The obscure only exists that it may cease to exist. In it lies the opportunity of all victory and all progress. Whether it call itself fatality, death, night, or matter, it is the pedestal of life, of light, of liberty and the spirit. For it represents resistance -- that is to say, the fulcrum of all activity, the occasion for its development and its triumph. Henri-Frédéric Amiel
