Amiel's Journal Quotes

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Amiel's Journal Amiel's Journal by Henri-Frédéric Amiel
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Amiel's Journal Quotes Showing 1-22 of 22
“Life is short and we never have enough time for the hearts of those who travel the way with us. O, be swift to love! Make haste to be kind.”
Henri-Frederic Amiel, Amiel's Journal
tags: love
“The man who has no inner life is the slave of his surroundings.”
Henri Frédéric Amiel, Amiel's Journal
“Let mystery have its place in you; do not be always turning up your whole soil with the plowshare of self-examination, but leave a little fallow corner in your heart ready for any seed the winds may bring, and reserve a nook of shadow for the passing bird; keep a place in your heart for the unexpected guests, an altar for the unknown God. Then if a bird sing among your branches, do not be too eager to tame it. If you are conscious of something new - thought or feeling, wakening in the depths of your being - do not be in a hurry to let in light upon it, to look at it; let the springing germ have the protection of being forgotten, hedge it round with quiet, and do not break in upon its darkness.”
Henri-Frédéric Amiel, Amiel's Journal
“Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark journey with us. Oh, be swift to love, make haste to be kind.”
Henri-Frédéric Amiel, Amiel's Journal
“At the bottom of the modern man there is always a great thirst for self-forgetfulness, self-distraction; he has a secret horror of all which makes him feel his own littleness; the eternal, the infinite, perfection, therefore scare and terrify him. He wishes to approve himself, to admire and congratulate himself; and therefore he turns away from all those problems and abysses which might recall to him his own nothingness.”
Henri-Frédéric Amiel, Amiel's Journal
“Time is but the space between our memories; as soon as we cease to perceive this space, time has disappeared.”
Henri-Frédéric Amiel, Amiel's Journal
“What is it which has always come between real life and me? What glass screen has, as it were, interposed itself between me and the enjoyment, the possession, the contact of things, leaving me only the role of the looker-on?”
Henri-Frédéric Amiel, Amiel's Journal
“Feebleness of will brings about weakness of head, and the abyss, in spite of its horror, comes to fascinate us, as though it were a place of refuge. Terrible danger! For this abyss is within us; this gulf, open like the vast jaws of an infernal serpent bent on devouring us, is in the depth of our own being, and our liberty floats over this void, which is always seeking to swallow it up.”
Henri-Frédéric Amiel, Amiel's Journal
“In these moments of tête-à-tête with the infinite, how different life looks! How all that usually occupies and excites us becomes suddenly puerile, frivolous, and vain. We seem to ourselves mere puppets, marionettes, strutting seriously through a fantastic show, and mistaking gewgaws for things of great price.”
Henri-Frédéric Amiel, Amiel's Journal
“Reality, the present, the irreparable, the necessary, repel and even terrify me. I have too much imagination, conscience, and penetration and not enough character. The life of thought alone seems to me to have enough elasticity and immensity, to be free enough from the irreparable; practical life makes me afraid. I am distrustful of myself and of happiness because I know myself. The ideal poisons for me all imperfect possession. And I abhor useless regrets and repentance.”
Henri-Frédéric Amiel, Amiel's Journal
“A journal takes the place of a confidant, that is, of friend or wife; it becomes a substitute for production, a substitute for country and public. It is a grief-cheating device, a mode of escape and withdrawal; but, factotum as it is, though it takes the place of everything, properly speaking it represents nothing at all...”
Henri-Frédéric Amiel, Amiel's Journal
“The old generation is going. What will the new bring us? What shall we ourselves contribute? <...> Destiny says to us: "Show what is in thee! Now is the moment, now is the hour, else fall back into nothingness! It is thy turn! Give the world thy measure, say thy word, reveal thy nullity or thy capacity. Come forth from the shade! It is no longer a question of promising, thou must perform. The time of apprenticeship is over. Servant, show us what thou hast done with thy talent. Speak now, or be silent forever.”
Henri-Frédéric Amiel, Amiel's Journal
“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.”
Henri-Frédéric Amiel, Amiel's Journal
“Hindoo wisdom long ago regarded the world as the dream of Brahma. Must we hold with Fichte that it is the individual dream of each individual ego? Every fool would then be a cosmogonic poet producing the firework of the universe under the dome of the infinite.”
Henri-Frédéric Amiel, Amiel's Journal
“A walk. The atmosphere incredibly pure ... joy in one's whole being ... I abandoned myself to life and to nature ... To open one's heart in purity to this ever-pure nature, to allow this immortal life of things to penetrate into one's soul, is at the same time to listen to the voice of God. Sensation may be a prayer, and self-abandonment an act of devotion.”
Henri-Frédéric Amiel, Amiel's Journal
“Uniformity...creates a void, and Nature abhors a vacuum.”
Henri-Frédéric Amiel, The Private Journal of Henri Frederic Amiel
“Whoever becomes a sheep is eaten by wolves.”
Henri-Frédéric Amiel, The Private Journal of Henri Frederic Amiel
“Whoever is unwilling to make mistakes should not act.”
Henri-Frédéric Amiel, The Private Journal of Henri Frederic Amiel
“Wisdom has its shipwrecks which are more ugly than those of madness.”
Henri-Frédéric Amiel, The Private Journal of Henri Frederic Amiel
“If men are always more or less deceived on the subject of women, it is because that they forget that they and women do not speak altogether the same language, and that words have not the same weight or the same meaning for them, especially in questions of feeling. Whether from shyness or precaution or artifice, a woman never speaks out her whole thought, and moreover what she herself knows of it is but a part of what it really is. Complete frankness seems to be impossible to her, and complete self-knowledge seems to be forbidden her. If she is a sphinx to us, it is because she is a riddle of doubtful meaning even to herself. She has no need of perfidy, for she is mystery itself. A woman is something fugitive, irrational, indeterminable, illogical, and contradictory. A great deal of forbearance ought to be shown her, and a good deal of prudence exercised with regard to her, for she may bring about innumerable evils without knowing it, capable of all kinds of devotion, and of all kinds of treason, "monstre incompréhensible,'' raised to the second power, she is at once the delight and the terror of men.”
Henri-Frédéric Amiel, Amiel’s Journal: The Journal Intime of Henri-Frédéric Amiel; Translated, With an Introduction and Notes
“A dog's life! and not so much as a cat to help me...”
Henri-Frédéric Amiel, The Private Journal of Henri Frederic Amiel
“Let us do better.”
Henri-Frédéric Amiel, The Private Journal of Henri Frederic Amiel