HENRI FREDERIC AMIEL

To marry unequally is to suffer equally.

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

Let us be true: this is the highest maxim of art and of life, the secret of eloquence and of virtue, and of all moral authority.

Action is coarsened thought; thought becomes concrete, obscure, and unconscious.

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

Common sense is the measure of the possible; it is composed of experience and prevision; it is calculation applied to life.

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

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

To live we must conquer incessantly, we must have the courage to be happy.

Every life is a profession of faith, and exercises an inevitable and silent influence.

Woman is the salvation or the destruction of the family. She carries its destiny in the folds of her mantle.

Sympathy is the first condition of criticism.

In every loving woman there is a priestess of the past - a pious guardian of some affection, of which the object has disappeared.

Women wish to be loved without a why or a wherefore; not because they are pretty, or good, or well-bred, or graceful, or intelligent, but because they are themselves.

Doing easily what others find difficult is talent; doing what is impossible for talent is genius.

True humility is contentment.

Society lives by faith, and develops by science.

Common sense is calculation applied to life.

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

Analysis kills spontaneity. The grain once ground into flour springs and germinates no more.

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

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

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

The only substance properly so called is the soul.

Action and faith enslave thought, both of them in order not be troubled or inconvenienced by reflection, criticism, and doubt.