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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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

More quotes by Henri Frederic Amiel

Image
To be always ready a man must be able to cut a knot, for everything cannot be untied.
Henri Frederic Amiel
Image
Philosophy means the complete liberty of the mind, and therefore independence of all social, political or religious prejudice... It loves one thing only... truth.
Henri Frederic Amiel
Image
The spirit of sarcasm lives and thrives in the midst of universal wreck its balls are enchanted and itself invulnerable, and it braves retaliations and reprisals because itself is a mere flash, a bodiless and magical nothing.
Henri Frederic Amiel
Image
Philosophy starts with doubt and loves only truth.
Henri Frederic Amiel
Image
A musical theme once exhausted, finds its due refuge and repose in silence.
Henri Frederic Amiel
Image
Philosophy means the complete liberty of the mind.
Henri Frederic Amiel
Image
The best path through life is the highway.
Henri Frederic Amiel
Image
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
Image
Self-interest is but the survival of the animal in us. Humanity only begins for man with self-surrender.
Henri Frederic Amiel
Image
Whenever conscience speaks with a divided, uncertain, and disputed voice, it is not the voice of God. Descend still deeper into yourself, until you hear nothing but a clear, undivided voice, a voice which does away with doubt and brings with it persuasion, light, and serenity.
Henri Frederic Amiel
Image
The test of every religious, political, or educational system is the man that it forms.
Henri Frederic Amiel
Image
The only substance properly so called is the soul.
Henri Frederic Amiel
Image
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
Image
Man is saved by love and duty, and by the hope that springs from duty, or rather from the moral facts of consciousness, as a flower springs from the soil.
Henri Frederic Amiel
Image
Dreams are excursions into the limbo of things, a semi-deliverance from the human prison.
Henri Frederic Amiel
Image
Without passion man is a mere latent force and possibility, like the flint which awaits the shock of the iron before it can give forth its spark.
Henri Frederic Amiel
Image
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
Image
Materialism coarsens and petrifies everything, making everything vulgar, and every truth false.
Henri Frederic Amiel
Image
The immense majority of our species are candidates for humanity, and nothing more.
Henri Frederic Amiel
Image
The mind must have for ballast the clear conception of duty, if it is not to fluctuate between levity and despair.
Henri Frederic Amiel