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

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
Good
Unconsciousness
Dictate
Spontaneity
Relatively
Useful
Instinct
Hold
Earth

More quotes by Henri Frederic Amiel

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The growth and development of the soul is more important than power and glory.
Henri Frederic Amiel
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Life is an apprenticeship to the constant renunciations, to the steady failure of our claims, our hopes, our powers, our liberty.
Henri Frederic Amiel
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Our dependence outweighs our independence, for we are independent only in our desire, while we are dependent on our health, on nature, on society, on everything in us and outside us.
Henri Frederic Amiel
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It would have been a joy to me to be smiled upon, loved, encouraged, welcomed, and to obtain what I was so ready to give, kindness and goodwill. But to hunt down consideration and reputation - to force the esteem of others - seemed to me an effort unworthy of myself, almost a degradation.
Henri Frederic Amiel
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[T]he habit of scientific analysis ... exhausts the material offered to it.
Henri Frederic Amiel
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Pay bad people with your goodness fight their hatred with your kindness. Even if you do not achieve a victory over other people, you will conquer yourself.
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
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To do easily what is difficult for others is the mark of talent.
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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Materialism coarsens and petrifies everything, making everything vulgar, and every truth false.
Henri Frederic Amiel
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To do what is impossible for talent is the mark of genius.
Henri Frederic Amiel
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What we do not understand we have no right to judge
Henri Frederic Amiel
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It is by teaching that we teach ourselves, by relating that we observe, by affirming that we examine, by showing that we look, by writing that we think, by pumping that we draw water into the well.
Henri Frederic Amiel
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Time wasted is a theft from God.
Henri Frederic Amiel
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Doing easily what others find difficult is talent doing what is impossible for talent is genius.
Henri Frederic Amiel
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To marry unequally is to suffer equally.
Henri Frederic Amiel
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We are always making God our accomplice, that so we may legalize our own iniquities. Every successful massacre is consecrated by a Te Deum, and the clergy have never been wanting in benedictions for any victorious enormity.
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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A man only understands what is akin to something already existing in himself.
Henri Frederic Amiel
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To depersonalize man is the dominant drift of our times.
Henri Frederic Amiel