Henri Frederic Amiel

In every loving woman there is a priestess of the past - a pious guardian of some affection, of which the object has disappeared.

Let us be true: this is the highest maxim of art and of life, the secret of eloquence and of virtue, and of all moral authority.

We only understand that which already is within us.

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

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

So long as a person is capable of self-renewal they are a living being.

The test of every religious, political, or educational system is the man that it forms.

Clever people will recognize and tolerate nothing but cleverness.

The fire which enlightens is the same fire which consumes.

Sacrifice, which is the passion of great souls, has never been the law of societies.

Thought is a kind of opium; it can intoxicate us, while still broad awake; it can make transparent the mountains and everything that exists.

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

Our systems, perhaps, are nothing more than an unconscious apology for our faults, a gigantic scaffolding whose object is to hide from us our favorite sin.

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

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

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

Sacrifice still exists everywhere, and everywhere the elect of each generation suffers for the salvation of the rest.

It is not what he had, or even what he does which expresses the worth of a man, but what he is.

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

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