Quotes from Henri Frederic Amiel

We become actors without realizing it, and actors without wanting to.

To repel one's cross is to make it heavier.

Cleverness is serviceable for everything, sufficient for nothing.

Every life is a possession of faith, and exercises an inevitable and silent propaganda.

We must have the courage to be happy.

How, then, find the courage for action? By slipping a little into unconsciousness, spontaneity, instinct which holds one to the earth and dictates the relatively good and useful. ... By accepting the human condition more simply, and candidly, by dreading troubles less, calculating less, hoping more.

A man must be able to cut a knot, for everything cannot be untied.

The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides.

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.

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

For purposes of action, nothing is more useful than narrowness of thought combined with energy of will.

How, then, find the courage for action?... By accepting the human condition more simply and candidly, by dreading troubles less, calculating less, hoping more.

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

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.

Unconsciousness, spontaneity, instinct ... hold us to the earth and dictate the relatively good and useful.

Analysis kills spontaneity. The grain once ground into flour germinates no more.

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

Time wasted is a theft from God.

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

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

A thousand things advance; nine hundred and ninety-nine retreat; that is progress.

Analysis kills spontaneity. The grain once ground into flour springs and germinates no more.

Learn to ... be what you are, and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not.

A man must be able to cut a knot, for everything cannot be untied; he must know how to disengage what is essential from the detail in which it is enwrapped, for everything cannot be equally considered; in a word, he must be able to simplify his duties, his business and his life.