Henri-Frédéric Amiel Quotes

Henri-Frédéric Amiel

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

Henri-Frédéric Amiel
(The Journal Intime, 1852)
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Dreams are excursions into the limbo of things, a semi-deliverance from the human prison.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (The Journal Intime, 1872)

To live we must conquer incessantly, we must have the courage to be happy.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel

Every life has its potentiality of greatness.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (The Journal Intime, 1848)

Woman is the salvation or the destruction of the family. She carries its destiny in the folds of her mantle.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel

The best path through life is the high road, which initiates us at the right moment into all experience.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (The Journal Intime, 1873)

Cleverness is serviceable for everything, sufficient for nothing.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (The Journal Intime, 1868)

The fire which enlightens is also the fire which consumes.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (The Journal Intime, 1851)

The man who has no inner life is the slave of his surroundings

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (The Journal Intime)

We only understand that which already is within us.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (The Journal Intime, 1866)

Everything is a symbol of a symbol, and a symbol of what? of mind.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (The Journal Intime, 1850)

Society lives by faith, develops by science.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (The Journal Intime, 1870)

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

Henri-Frédéric Amiel



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

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (The Journal Intime, 1850)

Health is the first of all liberties, and happiness gives us the energy which is the basis of health. 

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (The Journal Intime, 1865)

We must learn to detach ourselves from all that is capable of being lost, to bind ourselves absolutely only to what is absolute and eternal, and to enjoy the rest as a loan...

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (The Journal Intime, 1848)

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

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.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (The Journal Intime, 1856)

At bottom there is but one subject of study: the forms and metamorphoses of mind. All other subjects may be reduced to that; all other studies bring us back to this study.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (The Journal Intime, 1848)

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.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (The Journal Intime, 1868)

We are never more discontented with others than when we are discontented with ourselves.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (The Journal Intime, 1857)

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-Frédéric Amiel (The Journal Intime, 1857)

You desire to know the art of living, my friend? It is contained in one phrase: make use of suffering.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel

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-Frédéric Amiel (The Journal Intime, 1874)

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

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (The Journal Intime, 1852)

True poetry is truer than science, because it is synthetic, and seizes at once what the combination of all the sciences is able, at most, to attain as a final result.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (The Journal Intime, 1852)

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

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (The Journal Intime, 1856)

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

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (The Journal Intime, 1856)

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.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (The Journal Intime, 1855)

There is no curing a sick man who believes himself to be in health.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (The Journal Intime, 1877)

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Henri-Frédéric Amiel Biography

Born: September 27, 1821
Died: May 11, 1881

Henri-Frédéric Amiel was a Swiss philosopher and poet. He is best known for his private journal and for his several volumes of poetry

Notable Works

The Journal Intime (1882)

Signature

Picture Quotes