Quote

Self-interest is an inexhaustible source of convenient illusions. The number of beings who wish to see truly is extraordinarily small.

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
Numbers
Extraordinarily
Illusions
Small
Convenient
Interest
Illusion
Wish
Beings
Self
Number
Truly
Source
Inexhaustible

More quotes by 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.
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Knowledge, love, power-there is the complete life.
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The stationary condition is the beginning of the end
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When everything is in its right place within us, we ourselves are in balance with the whole work of God.
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Great men are true men, the men in whom nature has succeeded. They are not extraordinary - they are in the true order. It is the other species of men who are not what they ought to be.
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The ideal, after all, is true than the real: for the ideal is the eternal element in perishable things.
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Sacrifice, which is the passion of great souls, has never been the law of societies.
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Every situation is an equilibrium of forces every life is a struggle between opposing forces working within the limits of a certain equilibrium
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The only substance properly so called is the soul.
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A musical theme once exhausted, finds its due refuge and repose in silence.
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Every man is a priest, even involuntarily his conduct is an unspoken sermon, which is forever preaching to others.
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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.
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Righteous ends, thus approved, absolve of guilt the most violent means.
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To be misunderstood even by those whom one loves is the cross and bitterness of life. It is the secret of that sad and melancholy smile on the lips of great men which so few understand.
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Common sense is the measure of the possible it is composed of experience and prevision it is calculation applied to life.
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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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There are 2 sorts of pride: one in which we approve others, the other in which we cannot accept ourselves.
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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.
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To depersonalize man is the dominant drift of our times.
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The growth and development of the soul is more important than power and glory.
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