Quotes by Henri Frederic Amiel

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

At the bottom of the modern man there is always a great thirst for self-forgetfulness, self-distraction . . . and therefore he turns away from all those problems and abysses which might recall to him his own nothingness.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Wisdom consists in rising superior both to madness and to common sense, and in lending oneself to the universal delusion without becoming its dupe.

Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be outraged by silence.

Truth is the secret of eloquence and of virtue, the basis of moral authority: it is the highest summit of art and of life.