Henri Frederic Amiel Quotes

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.

Life is short. Be swift to love! Make haste to be kind!

Common sense is calculation applied to life.

The best path through life is the highway.

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 con.

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

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.

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

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

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

Order is power.

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.

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

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

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

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

Society lives by faith, and develops by science.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.