Henri Frederic Amiel
Henri Frederic Amiel
Henri Frédéric Amielwas a Swiss moral philosopher, poet, and critic...
NationalitySwiss
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth27 September 1821
CountrySwitzerland
science able finals
True poetry is truer than science, because it is synthetic, and seizes at once what the combination of all the sciences is able, at most, to attain as a final result.
science conscience
Society rests upon conscience, not upon science.
science scientific-method analysis
[T]he habit of scientific analysis ... exhausts the material offered to it...
science class mind
[I]t is truth alone-scientific, established, proved, and rational truth-which is capable of satisfying nowadays the awakened minds of all classes. We may still say perhaps, 'faith governs the world,'-but the faith of the present is no longer in revelation or in the priest-it is in reason and in science.
science common-sense experience
Common sense is the measure of the possible; it is composed of experience and prevision; it is calculation applied to life.
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.