Quotes

Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude. Gratitude is the completion of thankfulness. Thankfulness may consist merely of words. Gratitude is shown in acts.

Henri Frederic Amiel

Tears are the symbol of the inability of the soul to restrain its emotion and retain its self command.

Henri Frederic Amiel

Sympathy is the first condition of criticism.

Henri Frederic Amiel

Society lives by faith, and develops by science.

Henri Frederic Amiel

So long as a person is capable of self-renewal they are a living being.

Henri Frederic Amiel

Self-interest is but the survival of the animal in us. Humanity only begins for man with self-surrender.

Henri Frederic Amiel

Sacrifice, which is the passion of great souls, has never been the law of societies.

Henri Frederic Amiel

Sacrifice still exists everywhere, and everywhere the elect of each generation suffers for the salvation of the rest.

Henri Frederic Amiel

Pure truth cannot be assimilated by the crowd; it must be communicated by contagion.

Henri Frederic Amiel

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.

Henri Frederic Amiel

Our duty is to be useful, not according to our desires but according to our powers.

Henri Frederic Amiel

Order is power.

Henri Frederic Amiel

Order is a great person's need and their true well being.

Henri Frederic Amiel

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

Materialism coarsens and petrifies everything, making everything vulgar, and every truth false.

Henri Frederic Amiel

Man becomes man only by his intelligence, but he is man only by his heart.

Henri Frederic Amiel

Life is short. Be swift to love! Make haste to be kind!

Henri Frederic Amiel

Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are travelling the dark journey with us. Oh be swift to love, make haste to be kind.

Henri Frederic Amiel

Let mystery have its place in you; do not be always turning up your whole soil with the ploughshare of self-examination, but leave a little fallow corner in your heart ready for any seed the winds may bring.

Henri Frederic Amiel

Learn to... be what you are, and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not.

Henri Frederic Amiel