Henri Frederic Amiel

Henri Frederic Amiel
Henri Frédéric Amielwas a Swiss moral philosopher, poet, and critic...
NationalitySwiss
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth27 September 1821
CountrySwitzerland
dream deliverance prison
Dreams are excursions into the limbo of things, a semi-deliverance from the human prison.
dream peace results
Peace is not in itself a dream, but we know it only as the result of a momentary equilibrium--an accident.
dream husband father
I have never felt any inward assurance of genius, or any presentiment of glory or of happiness. I have never seen myself in imagination great or famous, or even a husband, a father, an influential citizen. This indifference to the future, this absolute self-distrust, are, no doubt, to be taken as signs. What dreams I have are all vague and indefinite; I ought not to live, for I am now scarcely capable of living.
music dream peace
Music is harmony, harmony is perfection, perfection is our dream, and our dream is heaven.
according duty
Our duty is to be useful, not according to our desires, but according to our powers.
french passion thirst truth
The thirst for truth is not a French passion
exercises faith inevitable life profession silent
Every life is a profession of faith and exercises an inevitable and silent influence.
becoming both common consists delusion lending madness oneself rising superior universal wisdom
Wisdom consists in rising superior both to madness and to common sense, and in lending oneself to the universal delusion without becoming its dupe.
finite fragments infinite space time
Time and space are fragments of the infinite for the use of the finite creatures.
advice haste life swift
Life is short. Be swift to love! Make haste to be kind!
haste hearts life short swift time travel
Life is short and we never have enough time for gladdening the hearts of those who travel the way with us. Oh, be swift to love! Make haste to be kind.
corner fallow heart leave mystery ready seed soil turning winds
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...
understand within
We only understand that which already within us.
difficult easily impossible others talent
Doing easily what others find difficult is talent; doing what is impossible for others is genius.