Henri Frédéric Amiel

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

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

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.

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

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

If nationality is consent, the state is compulsion.

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

Uncertainty is the refuge of hope.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Cleverness is serviceable for everything, sufficient for nothing.

Action is only coarsened thought—thought becomes concrete, obscure, and unconscious.