Quote

Time is but the measure of the difficulty of a conception. Pure thought has scarcely any need of time, since it perceives the two ends of an idea almost at the same moment.

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
Two
Measure
Ends
Difficulty
Thought
Pure
Ideas
Since
Need
Almost
Perceives
Needs
Moment
Scarcely
Time
Idea
Conception
Moments
Perceive

More quotes by Henri Frederic Amiel

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Man is a passion which brings a will into play, which works an intelligence.
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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.
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Common sense is calculation applied to life.
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Time wasted is a theft from God.
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We only understand that which already is within us.
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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.
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To depersonalize man is the dominant drift of our times.
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Self-interest is but the survival of the animal in us. Humanity only begins for man with self-surrender.
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Our duty is to be useful, not according to our desires but according to our powers.
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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?
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Learn to... be what you are, and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not.
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[T]he habit of scientific analysis ... exhausts the material offered to it.
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I do not deny the rights of democracy, but I have no illusions as to the uses that will be made of those rights so long as wisdom is rare and pride abundant
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The tragic solemnity of existence strikes us with terrible force on that morning when we wake to find the mournful words too late ringing in our ears.
Henri Frederic Amiel
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For purposes of action nothing is more useful than narrowness of thought combined with energy of will.
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The ideal, after all, is true than the real: for the ideal is the eternal element in perishable things.
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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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.
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Every landscape is, as it were, a state of the soul, and whoever penetrates into both is astonished to find how much likeness there is in each detail.
Henri Frederic Amiel
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Woman is the salvation or the destruction of the family. She carries its destiny in the folds of her mantle.
Henri Frederic Amiel