Quote

There is an illusion of central position, justifying one's own purposes as right and everybody else¹s as wrong, and providing a proper degree of paranoia. Righteous ends, thus approved, absolve of guilt the most violent means.

Henri Frederic Amiel

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Henri Frederic Amiel
Age: 59 †
Born: 1821
Born: September 27
Died: 1881
Died: May 11
Diarist
Literary Critic
Philosopher
Poet
Translator
University Teacher
Writer
Genève
Henri-Frederic Amiel
Henri Frédéric Amiel
Ends
Illusion
Providing
Right
Position
Central
Mean
Justice
Proper
Absolve
Everybody
Guilt
Justifying
Wrong
Degree
Paranoia
Purpose
Violent
Approved
Means
Thus
Purposes
Else
Degrees
Righteous

More quotes by Henri Frederic Amiel

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Latent genius is but a presumption. Everything that can be, is bound to come into being, and what never comes into being is nothing.
Henri Frederic Amiel
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It is dangerous to abandon one's self to the luxury of grief it deprives one of courage, and even of the wish for recovery.
Henri Frederic Amiel
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Mutual respect implies discretion and reserve even in love itself it means preserving as much liberty as possible to those whose life we share. We must distrust our instinct of intervention, for the desire to make one's own will prevail is often disguised under the mask of solicitude.
Henri Frederic Amiel
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The test of every religious, political, or educational system is the man that it forms.
Henri Frederic Amiel
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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.
Henri Frederic Amiel
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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.
Henri Frederic Amiel
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We are never more discontented with others than when we are discontented with ourselves. The consciousness of wrong-doing makes us irritable, and our heart, in its cunning, quarrels with what is outside it, in order that it may deafen the clamor within.
Henri Frederic Amiel
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Never to tire, never to grow cold to be patient, sympathetic, tender to look for the budding flower and the opening heart to hope always like God, to love always--this is duty.
Henri Frederic Amiel
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To do easily what is difficult for others is the mark of talent.
Henri Frederic Amiel
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There are 2 sorts of pride: one in which we approve others, the other in which we cannot accept ourselves.
Henri Frederic Amiel
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Men of genius supply the substance of history, while the mass of men are but the critical filter, the limiting, slackening, passive force needed for the modification of ideas supplied by genius.
Henri Frederic Amiel
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Philosophy starts with doubt and loves only truth.
Henri Frederic Amiel
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Heroism is the brilliant triumph of the soul over the flesh - over fear...Heroism is the dazzling and glorious concentration of courage.
Henri Frederic Amiel
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Righteous ends, thus approved, absolve of guilt the most violent means.
Henri Frederic Amiel
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If nationality is consent, the state is compulsion.
Henri Frederic Amiel
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The great majority of men are but tangled skeins, imperfect keyboards, so many specimens of restless or stagnant chaos--and what makes their situation almost hopeless is the fact that they take pleasure in it. There is no curing a sick man who believes himself in health.
Henri Frederic Amiel
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War is a brutal and fierce means of pacification it means the suppression of resistance by the destruction or enslavement of the conquered.
Henri Frederic Amiel
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From every spot on earth we are equally near heaven and the infinite.
Henri Frederic Amiel
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The only substance properly so called is the soul.
Henri Frederic Amiel
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Women wish to be loved without a why or a wherefore not because they are pretty, or good, or well-bred, or graceful, or intelligent, but because they are themselves.
Henri Frederic Amiel