Quotes from Henri Frederic Amiel

Happiness does away with ugliness, and even makes the beauty of beauty.

At bottom, everything depends upon the presence or absence of one single element in the soul - HOPE

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

The man who has no inner-life is a slave to his surroundings.

Sympathy is the first condition of criticism.

He who is too much afraid of being duped has lost the power of being magnanimous.

Order means light and peace, inward liberty and free command over one's self; order is power.

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

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

Clever people will recognize and tolerate nothing but cleverness.

Kindness is gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark journey with us.

Pay bad people with your goodness; fight their hatred with your kindness. Even if you do not achieve a victory over other people, you will conquer yourself.

There is only one way of not hating those who do us wrong, and that is by doing them good.

Oh be swift to live, make haste to be kind.

Liberty, equality - bad principles! The only true principle for humanity is justice; and justice to the feeble is protection and kindness.

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.

A man only understands what is akin to something already existing in himself.

Emancipation from error is the condition of real knowledge.

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.

[T]he habit of scientific analysis ... exhausts the material offered to it.

To be misunderstood even by those whom one loves is the cross and bitterness of life. It is the secret of that sad and melancholy smile on the lips of great men which so few understand.

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

Life is but a daily oscillation between revolt and submission.

Work while you have the light. You are responsible for the talent that has been entrusted to you.