Henri Frédéric Amiel (1821–81) was a Swiss moral philosopher, poet, and critic.
Born in Geneva, Amiel lost his parents at an early age. He traveled widely, became intimate with the intellectual leaders of Europe, and made a unique study of German philosophy in Berlin. He became a professor of aesthetics (1849) and moral philosophy (1853–81) at the Academy of Geneva.
Amiel published some essays and poems, but his fame as an intellectual and a critic rest on his diaries (1847 onwards,) published posthumously as Journal in Time (1883; Private Journal.) British writer Mary Augusta Ward, at the suggestion of academic Mark Pattison, translated it into English.
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Nothing resembles pride so much as discouragement.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Failure
What we call little things are merely the causes of great things; they are the beginning, the embryo, and it is the point of departure which, generally speaking, decides the whole future of an existence. One single black speck may be the beginning of a gangrene, of a storm, of a revolution.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Little Things, Things
The only substance properly so called is the soul.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Soul
We become actors without realizing it, and actors without wanting to.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Acting, Actors
In every loving woman there is a priestess of the past—a pious guardian of some affection, of which the object has disappeared.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Lovers, The Past
An error is the more dangerous in proportion to the degree of truth which it contains.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Mistakes
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
Melancholy is at the bottom of everything, just as at the end of all rivers is the sea. Can it be otherwise in a world where nothing lasts, where all that we have loved or shall love must die?. Is death, then, the secret of life?. The gloom of an eternal mourning enwraps, more or less closely, every serious and thoughtful soul, as night enwraps the universe.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Sadness
Sympathy is the first condition of criticism.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Sympathy
Great men are the real men, in them nature has succeeded.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Greatness
Without faith a man can do nothing. But faith can stifle all science.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Faith
To know how to grow old is the master-work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Old Age, Age, Aging
In health there is freedom. Health is the first of all liberties.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Health
What is an intelligent man? A man who enters with ease and completeness into the spirit of things and the intention of persons, and who arrives at an end by the shortest route.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Intelligence
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
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.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Teaching, Charity, Giving
A woman is sometimes 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, monster incomprehensible, raised to the second power, she is at once the delight and the terror of man.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Women
Man becomes man only by his intelligence, but he is man only by his heart.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Instincts, Intelligence
Sacrifice still exists everywhere, and everywhere the elect of each generation suffers for the salvation of the rest.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Sacrifice
Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude. Gratitude is the completion of thankfulness. Thankfulness may consist merely of words. Gratitude is shown in acts.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Appreciation, Thankfulness
The philosopher is like a man fasting in the midst of universal intoxication. He alone perceives the illusion of which all creatures are the willing playthings; he is less duped than his neighbor by his own nature. He judges more sanely, he sees things as they are. It is in this that his liberty consists—in the ability to see clearly and soberly, in the power of mental record.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Philosophers, Philosophy
Order means light and peace, inward liberty and free command over one’s self; order is power.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Order
Thought is a kind of opium; it can intoxicate us, while still broad awake; it can make transparent the mountains and everything that exists.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Thought, Thoughts, Thinking
Will localizes us; thought universalizes us.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Willpower, Will, Will Power
Materialism coarsens and petrifies everything, making everything vulgar, and every truth false.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Consumerism
Clever people will recognize and tolerate nothing but cleverness.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Intelligence, Intellectuals, Cleverness
Common sense is the measure of the possible; it is composed of experience and prevision; it is calculation applied to life.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Common Sense, Experience
Time wasted is a theft from God.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Value of Time, Time Management
Sacrifice, which is the passion of great souls, has never been the law of societies.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Sacrifice
To win true peace, a man needs to feel himself directed, pardoned, and sustained by a supreme power, to feel himself in the right road, at the point where God would have him be – in order with God and the universe. This faith gives strength and calm.
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Topics: Faith, Spirituality, Belief
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