Henri Frederic Amiel Giving Quotations

It gives liberty and breadth to thought, to learn to judge our own epoch from the point of view of universal history, history from the point of view of geological periods, geology from the point of view of astronomy.

It would have been a joy to me to be smiled upon, loved, encouraged, welcomed, and to obtain what I was so ready to give, kindness and goodwill. But to hunt down consideration and reputation -- to force the esteem of others -- seemed to me an effort unworthy of myself, almost a degradation.

The musician of the present day, not being able to give us what is beautiful, torments himself to give us what is new.

Composition is a process of combination, in which thought puts together complementary truths, and talent fuses into harmony the most contrary qualities of style. So that there is no composition without effort, without pain even, as in all bringing forth. The reward is the giving birth to something living--something, that is to say, which, by a kind of magic, makes a living unity out of such opposed attributes as orderliness and spontaneity, thought and imagination, solidity and charm.

One may guess the why and wherefore of a tear and yet find it too subtle to give any account of. A tear may be the poetical resume of so many simultaneous impressions, the quintessence of so many opposing thoughts! It is like a drop of one of those precious elixirs of the East which contain the life of twenty plants fused into a single aroma.

Happiness gives us the energy which is the basis of health.

He who is silent is forgotten; he who does not advance falls back; he who stops is overwhelmed; out distanced, crushed; he who ceases t grow becomes smaller; he who leaves off, gives up; the condition of standing still is the beginning of the end.

Before giving advice we must have secured its acceptance, or, rather, have made it desired.

It is work which gives flavor to life.