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It Is Dangerous To Abandon One's Self To The Luxury Of Grief; It Deprives One Of Courage, And Even Of The Wish For Recovery.

-Henri Frederic Amiel

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It Is Dangerous To

Henri Frederic Amiel

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It Is Dangerous To Abandon One's Self To The Luxury Of Grief; It Deprives One Of Courage, And Even Of The Wish For Recovery.

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The Man Who Insists Upon Seeing With Perfect Clearness Before He Decides, Never Decides. Accept Life, And You Must Accept Regret.

Man Is Saved By Love And Duty, And By The Hope That Springs From Duty, Or Rather From The Moral Facts Of Consciousness, As A Flower Springs From The Soil.

From Every Spot On Earth We Are Equally Near Heaven And The Infinite.

Before Giving Advice We Must Have Secured Its Acceptance, Or, Rather, Have Made It Desired.

The Man Who Has No Inner-life Is A Slave To His Surroundings.

Positive Thinking

True Love Is That Which Ennobles The Personality, Fortifies The Heart, And Sanctifies The Existence.

At Bottom There Is But One Subject Of Study: The Forms And Metamorphoses Of Mind. All Other Subjects May Be Reduced To That; All Other Studies Bring Us Back To This Study.

Analysis Kills Spontaneity.

To Depersonalize Man Is The Dominant Drift Of Our Times.

What We Do Not Understand We Have No Right To Judge

Men Of Genius Supply The Substance Of History, While The Mass Of Men Are But The Critical Filter, The Limiting, Slackening, Passive Force Needed For The Modification Of Ideas Supplied By Genius.

Blessed Be Childhood, Which Brings Down Something Of Heaven Into The Midst Of Our Rough Earthliness.

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.

The Efficacy Of Religion Lies Precisely In What Is Not Rational, Philosophic, Nor Eternal; Its Efficacy Lies In The Unforeseen, The Miraculous, The Extraordinary. Thus Religion Attracts More Devotion According As It Demands More Faith - That Is To Say, As It Becomes More Incredible To The Profane Mind.

The Soul May Be Immortal Because She Is Fitted To Rise Towards That Which Is Neither Born Nor Dies, Towards That Which Exists Substantially, Necessarily, Invariably, That Is To Say Towards God.

Every Landscape Is, As It Were, A State Of The Soul, And Whoever Penetrates Into Both Is Astonished To Find How Much Likeness There Is In Each Detail.

We Are Always Making God Our Accomplice So That We May Legalize Our Own Inequities.

Let The Living Live; And You, Gather Together Your Thoughts, Leave Behind You A Legacy Of Feeling And Ideas; You Will Be Most Useful So.

The Masses Are The Material Of Democracy, But Its Form-that Is To Say, The Laws Which Express The General Reason, Justice, And Utility-can Only Be Rightly Shaped By Wisdom, Which Is By No Means A Universal Property.

As It Is Impossible To Be Outside God, The Best Is Consciously To Dwell In Him.

Liberty, Equality - Bad Principles! The Only True Principle For Humanity Is Justice; And Justice To The Feeble Is Protection And Kindness.

Thought Is A Kind Of Opium; It Can Intoxicate Us, While Still Broad Awake; It Can Make Transparent The Mountains And Everything That Exists.

The Man Who Has No Inner-life Is A Slave To His Surroundings.

Positive Thinking

Pay Bad People With Your Goodness; Fight Their Hatred With Your Kindness. Even If You Do Not Achieve A Victory Over Other People, You Will Conquer Yourself.

How, Then, Find The Courage For Action? By Slipping A Little Into Unconsciousness, Spontaneity, Instinct Which Holds One To The Earth And Dictates The Relatively Good And Useful. By Accepting The Human Condition More Simply, And Candidly, By Dreading Troubles Less, Calculating Less, Hoping More.

Truth Above All, Even When It Upsets Us And Overwhelms Us.

There Is No Curing A Sick Man Who Believes Himself To Be In Health.

Every Life Is A Profession Of Faith.

War Is A Brutal And Fierce Means Of Pacification; It Means The Suppression Of Resistance By The Destruction Or Enslavement Of The Conquered.

Our Dependence Outweighs Our Independence, For We Are Independent Only In Our Desire, While We Are Dependent On Our Health, On Nature, On Society, On Everything In Us And Outside Us.

Happiness Does Away With Ugliness, And Even Makes The Beauty Of Beauty.

What Governs Men Is The Fear Of Truth.

The Philosopher Aspires To Explain Away All Mysteries, To Dissolve Them Into Light. Mystery On The Other Hand Is Demanded And Pursued By The Religious Instinct; Mystery Constitutes The Essence Of Worship, The Power Of Proselytism.

The Philosopher Aspires To Explain Away All Mysteries, To Dissolve Them Into Light. Mystery, On The Other Hand, Is Demanded And Pursued By The Religious Instinct; Mystery Constitutes The Essence Of Worship.

He Who Asks Of Life Nothing But The Improvement Of His Own Nature... Is Less Liable Than Anyone Else To Miss And Waste Life.

Self Improvement

Mozart Has The Classic Purity Of Light And The Blue Ocean; Beethoven The Romantic Grandeur Which Belongs To The Storms Of Air And Sea, And While The Soul Of Mozart Seems To Dwell On The Ethereal Peaks Of Olympus, That Of Beethoven Climbs Shuddering The Storm-beaten Sides Of A Sinai. Blessed Be They Both! Each Represents A Moment Of The Ideal Life, Each Does Us Good. Our Love Is Due To Both.

Every Situation Is An Equilibrium Of Forces; Every Life Is A Struggle Between Opposing Forces Working Within The Limits Of A Certain Equilibrium

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.

The History Of Man Is Essentially Zoological; It Becomes Human Late In The Day, And Then Only In The Beautiful Souls, The Souls Alive To Justice, Goodness, Enthusiasm, And Devotion. The Angel Shows Itself Rarely And With Difficulty Through The Highly-organized Brute.

Civilization Is First Of All A Moral Thing. Without Truth, Respect For Duty, Love Of Neighbor, And Virtue, Everything Is Destroyed. The Morality Of A Society Is Alone The Basis Of Civilization.

Common Sense Is Calculation Applied To Life.

There Is An Illusion Of Central Position, Justifying One's Own Purposes As Right And Everybody Else¹s As Wrong, And Providing A Proper Degree Of Paranoia. Righteous Ends, Thus Approved, Absolve Of Guilt The Most Violent Means.

A Man Without Passion Is Only A Latent Force, Only A Possibility, Like A Stone Waiting For The Blow From The Iron To Give Forth Sparks.

Action Is Coarsened Thought; Thought Becomes Concrete, Obscure, And Unconscious.

To Live We Must Conquer Incessantly, We Must Have The Courage To Be Happy.

Do Not Despise Your Situation; In It You Must Act, Suffer, And Conquer. From Every Point On Earth We Are Equally Near To Heaven And To The Infinite.

To Be Misunderstood Even By Those Whom One Loves Is The Cross And Bitterness Of Life. It Is The Secret Of That Sad And Melancholy Smile On The Lips Of Great Men Which So Few Understand; It Is The Cruelest Trial Reserved For Self-devotion; It Is What Must Have Oftenest Wrung The Heart Of The Son Of Man; And If God Could Suffer, It Would Be The Wound We Should Be Forever Inflicting Upon Him. He Also - He Above All - Is The Great Misunderstood, The Least Comprehended.

Truth Is Not Only Violated By Falsehood; It May Be Equally Outraged By Silence.

Cleverness Is Serviceable For Everything, Sufficient For Nothing.

The Tragic Solemnity Of Existence Strikes Us With Terrible Force On That Morning When We Wake To Find The Mournful Words "too Late" Ringing In Our Ears.

We Are All Visionaries, And What We See Is Our Soul In Things.

Learn To Limit Yourself; To Content Yourself With Some Definite Work; Dare To Be What You Are And Learn To Resign With A Good Grace All That You Are Not; And To Believe In Your Own Individuality.

It Is Not What He Had, Or Even What He Does Which Expresses The Worth Of A Man, But What He Is.

Tears Are The Symbol Of The Inability Of The Soul To Restrain Its Emotion And Retain Its Self Command.

To Know Where One Is Going And What One Wishes - This Is Order ... To Organize One's Life To Distribute One's Time ... All This Belong To And Is Included In The Word Order.

It Is Work Which Gives Flavor To Life.

About Jesus We Must Believe No One But Himself.

To Feel Keenly The Poetry Of A Morning's Roses, One Has To Have Just Escaped From The Claws Of This Vulture Which We Call Sickness.

War Is A Brutal And Fierce Means Of Pacification; It Means The Suppression Of Resistance By The Destruction Or Enslavement Of The Conquered.

Time Is But The Space Between Our Memories; As Soon As We Cease To Perceive This Space, Time Has Disappeared.

Philosophy Starts With Doubt And Loves Only Truth.

Almost Everything Comes From Almost Nothing.

Everything You Need For Better Future And Success Has Already Been Written. And Guess What? All You Have To Do Is Go To The Library.

Congratulations

What We Call Little Things Are Merely The Causes Of Great Things.

The Obscure Only Exists That It May Cease To Exist. In It Lies The Opportunity Of All Victory And All Progress. Whether It Call Itself Fatality, Death, Night, Or Matter, It Is The Pedestal Of Life, Of Light, Of Liberty And The Spirit. For It Represents Resistance -- That Is To Say, The Fulcrum Of All Activity, The Occasion For Its Development And Its Triumph.

The Spirit Of Sarcasm Lives And Thrives In The Midst Of Universal Wreck; Its Balls Are Enchanted And Itself Invulnerable, And It Braves Retaliations And Reprisals Because Itself Is A Mere Flash, A Bodiless And Magical Nothing.

Righteous Ends, Thus Approved, Absolve Of Guilt The Most Violent Means.

Sadness Takes Up The Pen More Readily Than Joy.

Each Bud Flowers But Once And Each Flower Has But Its Minute Of Perfect Beauty; So, In The Garden Of The Soul Each Feeling Has, As It Were, Its Flowering Instant, Its One And Only Moment Of Expansive Grace And Radiant Kingship.

We Are Never More Discontented With Others Than When We Are Discontented With Ourselves. The Consciousness Of Wrong-doing Makes Us Irritable, And Our Heart, In Its Cunning, Quarrels With What Is Outside It, In Order That It May Deafen The Clamor Within.

In Health There Is Freedom. Health Is The First Of All Liberties.

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.

Independent Women

Obstinacy Is Will Asserting Itself Without Being Able To Justify Itself. It Is Persistence Without A Reasonable Motive. It Is The Tenacity Of Self-love Substituted For That Of Reason And Conscience.

To Do What Is Impossible For Talent Is The Mark Of Genius.

Life Is An Apprenticeship To The Constant Renunciations, To The Steady Failure Of Our Claims, Our Hopes, Our Powers, Our Liberty.

Every Situation Is An Equilibrium Of Forces; Every Life Is A Struggle Between Opposing Forces Working Within The Limits Of A Certain Equilibrium

Sadness Takes Up The Pen More Readily Than Joy.

Knowledge, Love, Power-there Is The Complete Life.

Faith Is Certitude Without Proofs ... Faith Is A Sentiment, For It Is A Hope; It Is An Instinct, For It Precedes All Outward Instruction.

In Health There Is Freedom. Health Is The First Of All Liberties.

Wisdom Consists In Rising Superior Both To Madness And To Common Sense, And Is Lending Oneself To The Universal Illusion Without Becoming Its Dupe.

The Efficacy Of Religion Lies Precisely In What Is Not Rational, Philosophic, Nor Eternal; Its Efficacy Lies In The Unforeseen, The Miraculous, The Extraordinary. Thus Religion Attracts More Devotion According As It Demands More Faith - That Is To Say, As It Becomes More Incredible To The Profane Mind.

Time And Space Are Fragments Of The Infinite For The Use Of Finite Creatures.

Accept Life, And You Must Accept Regret.

We Are Never More Discontented With Others Than When We Are Discontented With Ourselves.

For Purposes Of Action Nothing Is More Useful Than Narrowness Of Thought Combined With Energy Of Will.

Each Bud Flowers But Once And Each Flower Has But Its Minute Of Perfect Beauty; So, In The Garden Of The Soul Each Feeling Has, As It Were, Its Flowering Instant, Its One And Only Moment Of Expansive Grace And Radiant Kingship.

There Is Only One Way Of Not Hating Those Who Do Us Wrong, And That Is By Doing Them Good.

It Is By Teaching That We Teach Ourselves, By Relating That We Observe, By Affirming That We Examine, By Showing That We Look, By Writing That We Think, By Pumping That We Draw Water Into The Well.

Criticism Is Above All A Gift, An Intuition, A Matter Of Tact And Flair; It Cannot Be Taught Or Demonstrated--it Is An Art. Critical Genius Means An Aptitude For Discerning Truth Under Appearances Or In Disguises Which Conceal It; For Discovering It In Spite Of The Errors Of Testimony, The Frauds Of Tradition, The Dust Of Time, The Loss Or Alteration Of Texts. It Is The Sagacity Of The Hunter Whom Nothing Deceives For Long, And Whom No Ruse Can Throw Off The Trail.

Action And Faith Enslave Thought, Both Of Them In Order Not Be Troubled Or Inconvenienced By Reflection, Criticism, And Doubt.

Sympathy Is The First Condition Of Criticism.

The Test Of Every Religious, Political, Or Educational System, Is The Man Which It Forms. If A System Injures The Intelligence It Is Bad. If It Injures The Character It Is Vicious. If It Injures The Conscience It Is Criminal.

What We Call Little Things Are Merely The Causes Of Great Things.

The More A Man Loves, The More He Suffers. The Sum Of Possible Grief For Each Soul Is In Proportion To Its Degree Of Perfection.

Peace Is Not In Itself A Dream, But We Know It Only As The Result Of A Momentary Equilibrium--an Accident.

Great Men Are True Men, The Men In Whom Nature Has Succeeded. They Are Not Extraordinary - They Are In The True Order. It Is The Other Species Of Men Who Are Not What They Ought To Be.

The Growth And Development Of The Soul Is More Important Than Power And Glory.

How True It Is That Our Destinies Are Decided By Nothings And That A Small Imprudence Helped By Some Insignificant Accident, As An Acorn Is Fertilized By A Drop Of Rain, May Raise The Trees On Which Perhaps We And Others Shall Be Crucified.

Hope Is Only The Love Of Life.

In Every Loving Woman There Is A Priestess Of The Past - A Pious Guardian Of Some Affection, Of Which The Object Has Disappeared.

He Who Is Too Much Afraid Of Being Duped Has Lost The Power Of Being Magnanimous.

Learn To... Be What You Are, And Learn To Resign With A Good Grace All That You Are Not.

Our Duty Is To Be Useful, Not According To Our Desires But According To Our Powers.

Sympathy Is The First Condition Of Criticism.

Every Living Being Seeks Instinctively To Complete Itself.

Put Personal Ambition Away From You, And Then You Will Find Consolation In Living Or In Dying, Whatever May Happen To You.

Philosophy Means The Complete Liberty Of The Mind, And Therefore Independence Of All Social, Political Or Religious Prejudice... It Loves One Thing Only... Truth.

The Musician Of The Present Day, Not Being Able To Give Us What Is Beautiful, Torments Himself To Give Us What Is New.

A Journal Takes The Place Of A Confidant, That Is, Of Friend Or Wife; It Becomes A Substitute For Production, A Substitute For Country And Public. It Is A Grief-cheating Device, A Mode Of Escape And Withdrawal; But, Factotum As It Is, Though It Takes The Place Of Everything, Properly Speaking It Represents Nothing At All.

Whatever Impatience We May Feel Towards Our Neighbor, And Whatever Indignation Our Race May Rouse In Us, We Are Chained One To Another, And, Companions In Labour And Misfortune, Have Everything To Lose By Mutual Recrimination And Reproach. Let Us Be Silent As To Each Other's Weakness, Helpful, Tolerant, Many, Tender Towards Each Other! Or, If We Cannot Feel Tenderness, May We At Least Feel Pity!

Righteous Ends, Thus Approved, Absolve Of Guilt The Most Violent Means.

Conquering Any Difficulty Always Gives One A Secret Joy, For It Means Pushing Back A Boundary-line And Adding To One's Liberty.

When Everything Is In Its Right Place Within Us, We Ourselves Are In Balance With The Whole Work Of God.

Love Is Faith And One Faith Leads To Another.

Nothing Resembles Pride So Much As Discouragement.

A Belief Is Not True Simply Because It Is Useful.

Positive Atheism

Men Prefer The False Due To Habit, Passion, Will. Preference For Truth Is Rare. Men Are Ruled By Their Fear Of Truth.

We Only Understand That Which Already Is Within Us.

Doing Easily What Others Find Difficult Is Talent; Doing What Is Impossible For Talent Is Genius.

A Thousand Things Advance; Nine Hundred And Ninety Nine Retreat; That Is Progress.

Happiness Gives Us The Energy Which Is The Basis Of Health.

Doubt Is The Accomplice Of Tyranny.

The Great Artist And Thinker Are The Simplifiers.

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.

You Desire To Know The Art Of Living, My Friend? It Is Contained In One Phrase: Make Use Of Suffering.

It Is Not What He Had, Or Even What He Does Which Expresses The Worth Of A Man, But What He Is.

Knowledge, Love, Power-there Is The Complete Life.

The Art Which Is Grand And Yet Simple Is That Which Presupposes The Greatest Elevation Both In Artist And In Public.

The Stationary Condition Is The Beginning Of The End

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.

The Germs Of All Things Are In Every Heart, And The Greatest Criminals As Well As The Greatest Heroes Are But Different Modes Of Ourselves.

Analysis Kills Spontaneity. The Grain Once Ground Into Flour Springs And Germinates No More.

Nature Does At Least What She Can To Translate Into Visible Form The Wealth Of The Creative Formula. By The Vastness Of The Abysses Into Which She Penetrates, In The Effort--the Unsuccessful Effort--to House And Contain The Eternal Thought, We May Measure The Greatness Of The Divine Mind.

Our Dependence Outweighs Our Independence, For We Are Independent Only In Our Desire, While We Are Dependent On Our Health, On Nature, On Society, On Everything In Us And Outside Us.

Sympathy Is The First Condition Of Criticism; Reason And Justice Presuppose, At Their Origin, Emotion.

Religion Is Not A Method, It Is A Life, A Higher And Supernatural Life, Mystical In Its Root And Practical In Its Fruits; A Communion With God, A Calm And Deep Enthusiasm, A Love Which Radiates, A Force Which Acts, A Happiness Which Overflows.

We Are Always Making God Our Accomplice, That So We May Legalize Our Own Iniquities. Every Successful Massacre Is Consecrated By A Te Deum, And The Clergy Have Never Been Wanting In Benedictions For Any Victorious Enormity.

When Everything Is In Its Right Place Within Us, We Ourselves Are In Balance With The Whole Work Of God.

A Man Must Be Able To Cut A Knot, For Everything Cannot Be Untied; He Must Know How To Disengage What Is Essential From The Detail In Which It Is Enwrapped, For Everything Cannot Be Equally Considered; In A Word, He Must Be Able To Simplify His Duties, His Business And His Life.

True Love Is That Which Ennobles The Personality, Fortifies The Heart, And Sanctifies The Existence.

He Who Is Too Much Afraid Of Being Duped Has Lost The Power Of Being Magnanimous.

We Only Understand That Which Already Is Within Us.

Mozart Has The Classic Purity Of Light And The Blue Ocean; Beethoven The Romantic Grandeur Which Belongs To The Storms Of Air And Sea, And While The Soul Of Mozart Seems To Dwell On The Ethereal Peaks Of Olympus, That Of Beethoven Climbs Shuddering The Storm-beaten Sides Of A Sinai. Blessed Be They Both! Each Represents A Moment Of The Ideal Life, Each Does Us Good. Our Love Is Due To Both.

[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.

If Ignorance And Passion Are The Foes Of Popular Morality, It Must Be Confessed That Moral Indifference Is The Malady Of The Cultivated Classes.

Sympathy Is The First Condition Of Criticism; Reason And Justice Presuppose, At Their Origin, Emotion.

As It Is Impossible To Be Outside God, The Best Is Consciously To Dwell In Him.

Music Is Harmony, Harmony Is Perfection, Perfection Is Our Dream, And Our Dream Is Heaven.

Nothing Resembles Pride So Much As Discouragement.

Man Is A Willful And Covetous Animal, Who Makes Use Of His Intellect To Satisfy His Inclinations, But Who Cares Nothing For Truth, Who Rebels Against Personal Discipline, Who Hates Disinterested Thought And The Idea Of Self-education. Wisdom Offends Him, Because It Rouses In Him Disturbance And Confusion, And Because He Will Not See Himself As He Is.

In Every Loving Woman There Is A Priestess Of The Past

The Test Of Every Religious, Political, Or Educational System Is The Man That It Forms.

How True It Is That Our Destinies Are Decided By Nothings And That A Small Imprudence Helped By Some Insignificant Accident, As An Acorn Is Fertilized By A Drop Of Rain, May Raise The Trees On Which Perhaps We And Others Shall Be Crucified.

Every Life Is A Profession Of Faith.

There Is No Curing A Sick Man Who Believes Himself To Be In Health.

Will Localizes Us, Thought Universalizes Us.

At The Bottom Of The Modern Man There Is Always A Great Thirst For Self-forgetfulness, Self-distraction . . . And Therefore He Turns Away From All Those Problems And Abysses Which Might Recall To Him His Own Nothingness.

The Art Which Is Grand And Yet Simple Is That Which Presupposes The Greatest Elevation Both In Artist And In Public.

Our True History Is Scarcely Ever Deciphered By Others. The Chief Part Of The Drama Is A Monologue, Or Rather An Intimate Debate Between God, Our Conscience, And Ourselves. Tears, Grieves, Depressions, Disappointments, Irritations, Good And Evil Thoughts, Decisions, Uncertainties, Deliberations --all These Belong To Our Secret, And Are Almost All Incommunicable And Intransmissible, Even When We Try To Speak Of Them, And Even When We Write Them Down.

Each Man Enters Into God So Much As God Enters Into Him.

At Bottom There Is But One Subject Of Study: The Forms And Metamorphoses Of Mind. All Other Subjects May Be Reduced To That; All Other Studies Bring Us Back To This Study.

Men Don't Achieve Truth Because They Lack Humility And Love Of Truth. They Won't Criticize Their Own Beliefs. Truth Would Overwhelm Them.

Our Systems, Perhaps, Are Nothing More Than An Unconscious Apology For Our Faults, A Gigantic Scaffolding Whose Object Is To Hide From Us Our Favorite Sin.

There Is No Respect For Others Without Humility In One's Self.

Are We Not All Shipwrecked,...condemned To Death?... However Impatient Our Neighbours Make Us, However Much Indignation Our Race Arouses, We Are All Bound Together, And The Companions Of A Chain-gang Have Everything To Lose By Mutual Insults.

Never To Tire, Never To Grow Cold; To Be Patient, Sympathetic, Tender; To Look For The Budding Flower And The Opening Heart; To Hope Always; Like God, To Love Always--this Is Duty.

A Microscopic Phantom Of The Universe; This Is All That We Are Able To Be.

So Long As A Person Is Capable Of Self-renewal They Are A Living Being. -henri

Man Is A Passion Which Brings A Will Into Play, Which Works An Intelligence.

Action And Faith Enslave Thought, Both Of Them In Order Not Be Troubled Or Inconvenienced By Reflection, Criticism, And Doubt.

Self-interest Is But The Survival Of The Animal In Us. Humanity Only Begins For Man With Self-surrender.

Peace Is Not In Itself A Dream, But We Know It Only As The Result Of A Momentary Equilibrium--an Accident.

Our Systems, Perhaps, Are Nothing More Than An Unconscious Apology For Our Faults, A Gigantic Scaffolding Whose Object Is To Hide From Us Our Favorite Sin.

We Are Always Making God Our Accomplice, That So We May Legalize Our Own Iniquities. Every Successful Massacre Is Consecrated By A Te Deum, And The Clergy Have Never Been Wanting In Benedictions For Any Victorious Enormity.

Mutual Respect Implies Discretion And Reserve Even In Love Itself; It Means Preserving As Much Liberty As Possible To Those Whose Life We Share. We Must Distrust Our Instinct Of Intervention, For The Desire To Make One's Own Will Prevail Is Often Disguised Under The Mask Of Solicitude.

An Error Is The More Dangerous In Proportion To The Degree Of Truth Which It Contains.

Man Never Knows What He Wants; He Aspires To Penetrate Mysteries And As Soon As He Has, Wants To Re-establish Them. Ignorance Irritates Him And Knowledge Cloys.

I Can Find No Words For What I Feel. My Consciousness Is Withdrawn Into Itself; I Hear My Heart Beating, And My Life Passing. It Seems To Me That I Have Become A Statue On The Banks Of The River Of Time, That I Am The Spectator Of Some Mystery, And Shall Issue From It Old, Or No Longer Capable Of Age.

Learn To Limit Yourself; To Content Yourself With Some Definite Work; Dare To Be What You Are And Learn To Resign With A Good Grace All That You Are Not; And To Believe In Your Own Individuality.

Man Becomes Man Only By His Intelligence, But He Is Man Only By His Heart.

To Learn New Habits Is Everything, For It Is To Reach The Substance Of Life. Life Is But A Tissue Of Habits.

Truth Above All, Even When It Upsets Us And Overwhelms Us.

Man Is A Willful And Covetous Animal, Who Makes Use Of His Intellect To Satisfy His Inclinations, But Who Cares Nothing For Truth, Who Rebels Against Personal Discipline, Who Hates Disinterested Thought And The Idea Of Self-education. Wisdom Offends Him, Because It Rouses In Him Disturbance And Confusion, And Because He Will Not See Himself As He Is.

To Repel One's Cross Is To Make It Heavier.

The History Of Man Is Essentially Zoological; It Becomes Human Late In The Day, And Then Only In The Beautiful Souls, The Souls Alive To Justice, Goodness, Enthusiasm, And Devotion. The Angel Shows Itself Rarely And With Difficulty Through The Highly-organized Brute.

To Do Easily What Is Difficult For Others Is The Mark Of Talent.

The Musician Of The Present Day, Not Being Able To Give Us What Is Beautiful, Torments Himself To Give Us What Is New.

I Do Not Deny The Rights Of Democracy, But I Have No Illusions As To The Uses That Will Be Made Of Those Rights So Long As Wisdom Is Rare And Pride Abundant

The Great Majority Of Men Are But Tangled Skeins, Imperfect Keyboards, So Many Specimens Of Restless Or Stagnant Chaos--and What Makes Their Situation Almost Hopeless Is The Fact That They Take Pleasure In It. There Is No Curing A Sick Man Who Believes Himself In Health.

Common Sense Is The Measure Of The Possible; It Is Composed Of Experience And Prevision; It Is Calculation Applied To Life.

A Microscopic Phantom Of The Universe; This Is All That We Are Able To Be.

The Ideal Doctor Would Be A Man Endowed With Profound Knowledge Of Life And Of The Soul, Intuitively Divining Any Suffering Or Disorder Of Whatever Kind, And Restoring Peace By His Mere Presence.

Medical Knowledge

To Be Misunderstood Even By Those Whom One Loves Is The Cross And Bitterness Of Life. It Is The Secret Of That Sad And Melancholy Smile On The Lips Of Great Men Which So Few Understand.

We Become Actors Without Realizing It, And Actors Without Wanting To.

To Be Always Ready A Man Must Be Able To Cut A Knot, For Everything Cannot Be Untied.

Every Life Is A Profession Of Faith, And Exercises An Inevitable And Silent Influence.

To Win True Peace, A Man Needs To Feel Himself Directed, Pardoned, And Sustained By A Supreme Power, To Feel Himself In The Right Road, At The Point Where God Would Have Him Be - In Order With God And The Universe. This Faith Gives Strength And Calm.

Whatever Impatience We May Feel Towards Our Neighbor, And Whatever Indignation Our Race May Rouse In Us, We Are Chained One To Another, And, Companions In Labour And Misfortune, Have Everything To Lose By Mutual Recrimination And Reproach. Let Us Be Silent As To Each Other's Weakness, Helpful, Tolerant, Many, Tender Towards Each Other! Or, If We Cannot Feel Tenderness, May We At Least Feel Pity!

The Growth And Development Of The Soul Is More Important Than Power And Glory.

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