Henri Frederic Amiel

“The man who has no inner-life is a slave to his surroundings.”

“To marry unequally is to suffer equally.”

“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.”

“It is not what he had, or even what he does which expresses the worth of a man, but what he is.”

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

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

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

“I'm not interested in age. People who tell me their age are silly. You're as old as you feel.”

“The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides. Accept life, and you must accept regret.”

“For purposes of action nothing is more useful than narrowness of thought combined with energy of will.”

“The test of every religious, political, or educational system is the man that it forms.”

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

“To know how to suggest is the great art of teaching. To attain it we must be able to guess what will interest; we must learn to read the childish soul as we might a piece of music. Then, by simply changing the key, we keep up the attraction and vary the song.”

“In health there is freedom. Health is the first of all liberties.”

“Blessed be childhood, which brings down something of heaven into the midst of our rough earthliness.”

“Clever people will recognize and tolerate nothing but cleverness.”

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

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

“To do easily what is difficult for others is the mark of talent. To do what is impossible for talent is the mark of genius.”

“If nationality is consent, the state is compulsion.”