Henri Frederic Amiel
The man who has no inner-life is a slave to his surroundings.
The fire which enlightens is the same fire which consumes.
The best path through life is the highway.
The actors today really need the whip hand. They're so lazy. They haven't got the sense of pride in their profession that the less socially elevated musical comedy and music hall people or acrobats have. The theater has never been any good since the actors became gentlemen.
Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude. Gratitude is the completion of thankfulness. Thankfulness may consist merely of words. Gratitude is shown in acts.
Tears are the symbol of the inability of the soul to restrain its emotion and retain its self command.
Sympathy is the first condition of criticism.
Society lives by faith, and develops by science.
So long as a person is capable of self-renewal they are a living being.
Self-interest is but the survival of the animal in us. Humanity only begins for man with self-surrender.
Sacrifice, which is the passion of great souls, has never been the law of societies.
Sacrifice still exists everywhere, and everywhere the elect of each generation suffers for the salvation of the rest.
Pure truth cannot be assimilated by the crowd; it must be communicated by contagion.
Our systems, perhaps, are nothing more than an unconscious apology for our faults -a gigantic scaffolding whose object is to hide from us our favorite sin.
Our duty is to be useful, not according to our desires but according to our powers.
Order is power.
Order is a great person's need and their true well being.
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.
Materialism coarsens and petrifies everything, making everything vulgar, and every truth false.
Man becomes man only by his intelligence, but he is man only by his heart.