Explore Quotes by Henri Frederic Amiel

Order is a great person's need and their true well being.

To understand is to possess the thing understood, first by sympathy and then by intelligence.

Emancipation from error is the condition of real knowledge.

The ideal doctor would be a man endowed with profound knowledge of life and of the soul, intuitively divining any suffering or disorder of whatever kind, and restoring peace by his mere presence.

The growth and development of the soul is more important than power and glory.

Sadness takes up the pen more readily than joy.

There is no repose for the mind except in the absolute; for feeling, except in the infinite; for the soul, except in the divine.

What we call little things are merely the causes of great things.

What governs men is the fear of truth.

To do easily what is difficult for others is the mark of talent.

Life alone can rekindle life.

Heroism is the brilliant triumph of the soul over the flesh - over fear...Heroism is the dazzling and glorious concentration of courage.

How true it is that our destinies are decided by nothings and that a small imprudence helped by some insignificant accident, as an acorn is fertilized by a drop of rain, may raise the trees on which perhaps we and others shall be crucified.

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

The test of every religious, political, or educational system, is the man which it forms. If a system injures the intelligence it is bad. If it injures the character it is vicious. If it injures the conscience it is criminal.

When everything has its proper place in our minds, we are able to stand in equilibrium with the rest of the world.

I find myself regarding existence as though from beyond the tomb, from another world; all is strange to me; I am, as it were, outside my own body and individuality; I am depersonalized, detached, cut adrift. Is this madness?

What we call little things are merely the causes of great things; they are the beginning, the embryo, and it is the point of departure which, generally speaking, decides the whole future of an existence. One single black speck may be the beginning of gangrene, of a storm, of a revolution.

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

To know where one is going and what one wishes - this is order ... to organize one's life to distribute one's time ... all this belong to and is included in the word order.

Nothing resembles pride so much as discouragement.