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Nothing Finite Is True, Is Interesting, Is Worthy To Fix My Attention. All That Is Particular Is Exclusive, And All That Is Exclusive Repels Me.

-Henri Frederic Amiel

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Nothing Finite Is True,

Henri Frederic Amiel

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Nothing Finite Is True, Is Interesting, Is Worthy To Fix My Attention. All That Is Particular Is Exclusive, And All That Is Exclusive Repels Me.

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The Stationary Condition Is The Beginning Of The End

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

About Jesus We Must Believe No One But Himself.

True Humility Is Contentment.

To Know How To Suggest Is The Art Of Teaching.

I'm Not Interested In Age. People Who Tell Me Their Age Are Silly. You're As Old As You Feel.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

I Find Myself Regarding Existence As Though From Beyond The Tomb, From Another World; All Is Strange To Me; I Am, As It Were, Outside My Own Body And Individuality; I Am Depersonalized, Detached, Cut Adrift. Is This Madness?

Christianity, If It Is To Triumph Over Pantheism, Must Absorb It. To Our Pusillanimous Eyes Jesus Would Have Borne The Marks Of A Hateful Pantheism, For He Confirmed The Biblical Phrase "ye Are Gods," And So Would St. Paul, Who Tells Us That We Are Of "the Race Of God." Our Century Wants A New Theology - That Is To Say, A More Profound Explanation Of The Nature Of Christ And Of The Light Which It Flashes Upon Heaven And Upon Humanity.

Emancipation From Error Is The Condition Of Real Knowledge.

Sacrifice, Which Is The Passion Of Great Souls, Has Never Been The Law Of Societies.

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

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

Almost Everything Comes From Almost Nothing.

What Governs Men Is The Fear Of Truth.

If Nationality Is Consent, The State Is Compulsion.

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.

Sadness Takes Up The Pen More Readily Than Joy.

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

Tell Me What You Feel In Your Room When The Full Moon Is Shining In Upon You And Your Lamp Is Dying Out, And I Will Tell You How Old You Are, And I Shall Know If You Are Happy.

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

Cleverness Is Serviceable For Everything, Sufficient For Nothing.

Everything Which Is, Is Thought, But Not Conscious And Individual Thought. The Human Intelligence Is But The Consciousness Of Being. It Is What I Have Formulated Before: Everything Is A Symbol Of A Symbol, And A Symbol Of What? Of Mind.

Order Is Man's Greatest Need, And His True Well-being.

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

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

Any Landscape Is A Condition Of The Spirit.

American Landscape

The Fire Which Enlightens Is The Same Fire Which Consumes.

The Fire Which Enlightens Is The Same Fire Which Consumes.

Sympathy Is The First Condition Of Criticism.

Analysis Kills Spontaneity.

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

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

Society Lives By Faith, And Develops By Science.

The Philosopher Is Like A Man Fasting In The Midst Of Universal Intoxication. He Alone Perceives The Illusion Of Which All Creatures Are The Willing Playthings; He Is Less Duped Than His Neighbor By His Own Nature. He Judges More Sanely, He Sees Things As They Are. It Is In This That His Liberty Consists - In The Ability To See Clearly And Soberly, In The Power Of Mental Record.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

Emancipation From Error Is The Condition Of Real Knowledge.

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.

Unconsciousness, Spontaneity, Instinct ... Hold Us To The Earth And Dictate The Relatively Good And Useful.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

When Everything Has Its Proper Place In Our Minds, We Are Able To Stand In Equilibrium With The Rest Of The World.

Time Is But The Measure Of The Difficulty Of A Conception. Pure Thought Has Scarcely Any Need Of Time, Since It Perceives The Two Ends Of An Idea Almost At The Same Moment.

Order Means Light And Peace, Inward Liberty And Free Command Over One's Self; Order Is Power.

Common Sense Is The Measure Of The Possible.

If Nationality Is Consent, The State Is Compulsion.

A Modest Garden Contains, For Those Who Know How To Look And To Wait, More Instruction Than A Library.

Love Is Faith And One Faith Leads To Another.

Work While You Have The Light. You Are Responsible For The Talent That Has Been Entrusted To You.

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.

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.

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.

Time Wasted Is A Theft From God.

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

Sadness Takes Up The Pen More Readily Than Joy.

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

Heroism Is The Brilliant Triumph Of The Soul Over The Flesh - Over Fear...heroism Is The Dazzling And Glorious Concentration Of Courage.

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

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.

Our Greatest Illusion Is To Believe That We Are What We Think Ourselves To Be.

Nothing Finite Is True, Is Interesting, Is Worthy To Fix My Attention. All That Is Particular Is Exclusive, And All That Is Exclusive Repels Me.

Philosophy Starts With Doubt And Loves Only Truth.

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

True Humility Is Contentment.

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

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

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

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.

To Know How To Suggest Is The Art Of Teaching.

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.

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

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.

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.

At Bottom, Everything Depends Upon The Presence Or Absence Of One Single Element In The Soul - Hope

About Jesus We Must Believe No One But Himself.

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

The Mind Must Have For Ballast The Clear Conception Of Duty, If It Is Not To Fluctuate Between Levity And Despair.

Every Life Is A Profession Of Faith.

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

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.

Analysis Kills Spontaneity.

Oh Be Swift To Live, Make Haste To Be Kind.

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

Without Passion Man Is A Mere Latent Force And Possibility, Like The Flint Which Awaits The Shock Of The Iron Before It Can Give Forth Its Spark.

Every Living Being Seeks Instinctively To Complete Itself.

Woman Is The Salvation Or The Destruction Of The Family. She Carries Its Destiny In The Folds Of Her Mantle.

Destiny Has Two Ways Of Crushing Us - By Refusing Our Wishes And By Fulfilling Them.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Only Evil Grows Of Itself, While For Goodness We Want Effort And Courage.

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.

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

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

To Know How To Suggest Is The Great Art Of Teaching. To Attain It We Must Be Able To Guess What Will Interest; We Must Learn To Read The Childish Soul As We Might A Piece Of Music. Then, By Simply Changing The Key, We Keep Up The Attraction And Vary The Song.

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.

Pure Truth Cannot Be Assimilated By The Crowd; It Must Be Communicated By Contagion.

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

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.

The Beautiful Souls Of The World Have An Art Of Saintly Alchemy, By Which Bitterness Is Converted Into Kindness, The Gall Of Human Experience Into Gentleness, Ingratitude Into Benefits, Insults Into Pardon.

The Philosopher Is Like A Man Fasting In The Midst Of Universal Intoxication. He Alone Perceives The Illusion Of Which All Creatures Are The Willing Playthings; He Is Less Duped Than His Neighbor By His Own Nature. He Judges More Sanely, He Sees Things As They Are. It Is In This That His Liberty Consists - In The Ability To See Clearly And Soberly, In The Power Of Mental Record.

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

Nothing Finite Is True, Is Interesting, Is Worthy To Fix My Attention. All That Is Particular Is Exclusive, And All That Is Exclusive Repels Me.

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

To Understand Is To Possess The Thing Understood, First By Sympathy And Then By Intelligence.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

A Belief Is Not True Simply Because It Is Useful.

Positive Atheism

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

Hope Is Only The Love Of Life.

To Depersonalize Man Is The Dominant Drift Of Our Times.

Our Life Is Nothing, It Is True, But Our Life Is Divine. A Breath Of Nature Annihilates Us, But We Surpass Nature In Penetrating Far Beyond Her Vast Phantasmagoria To The Changeless And The Eternal.

I Wonder Whether I Should Gain Anything By The Attempt To Assume A Character Which Is Not Mine. My Wavering Manner, Born Of Doubt And Scruple, Has At Least The Advantage Of Rendering All The Different Shades Of My Thought, And Of Being Sincere. If It Were To Become Terse, Affirmative, Resolute, Would It Not Be A Mere Imitation?

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.

There Are 2 Sorts Of Pride: One In Which We Approve Others, The Other In Which We Cannot Accept Ourselves.

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

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

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

Sympathy Is The First Condition Of Criticism.

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.

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

[t]he Habit Of Scientific Analysis ... Exhausts The Material Offered To It.

Scientific Method

The Best Path Through Life Is The Highway.

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.

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.

To Marry Unequally Is To Suffer Equally.

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.

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.

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

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.

I Am A Spectator, So To Speak, Of The Molecular Whirlwind Which Men Call Individual Life; I Am Conscious Of An Incessant Metamorphosis, An Irresistible Movement Of Existence, Which Is Going On Within Me - And This Phenomenology Of Myself Serves As A Window Opened Upon The Mystery Of The World.

What We Call Little Things Are Merely The Causes Of Great Things; They Are The Beginning, The Embryo, And It Is The Point Of Departure Which, Generally Speaking, Decides The Whole Future Of An Existence. One Single Black Speck May Be The Beginning Of Gangrene, Of A Storm, Of A Revolution.

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.

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.

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.

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

I Find Myself Regarding Existence As Though From Beyond The Tomb, From Another World; All Is Strange To Me; I Am, As It Were, Outside My Own Body And Individuality; I Am Depersonalized, Detached, Cut Adrift. Is This Madness?

Uncertainty Is The Refuge Of Hope.

Any Landscape Is A Condition Of The Spirit.

American Landscape

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.

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.

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.

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.

I'm Not Interested In Age. People Who Tell Me Their Age Are Silly. You're As Old As You Feel.

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.

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

Without Passion Man Is A Mere Latent Force And Possibility, Like The Flint Which Awaits The Shock Of The Iron Before It Can Give Forth Its Spark.

Every Life Is A Profession Of Faith.

A Woman Is Sometimes Fugitive, Irrational, Indeterminable, Illogical And Contradictory. A Great Deal Of Forbearance Ought To Be Shown Her, And A Good Deal Of Prudence Exercised With Regard To Her, For She May Bring About Innumerable Evils Without Knowing It. Capable Of All Kinds Of Devotion, And Of All Kinds Of Treason, Monster Incomprehensible, Raised To The Second Power, She Is At Once The Delight And The Terror Of Man.

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

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.

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.

Life Is But A Daily Oscillation Between Revolt And Submission.

Nothing Resembles Pride So Much As Discouragement.

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

What Governs Men Is The Fear Of Truth.

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.

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

Order Is A Great Person's Need And Their True Well Being.

Love Is Like Swallowing Hot Chocolate Before It Has Cooled Off. It Takes You By Surprise At First, But Keeps You Warm For A Long Time.

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

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.

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.

He Who Floats With The Current, Who Does Not Guide Himself According To Higher Principles, Who Has No Ideal, No Convictions-such A Man Is . . . A Thing Moved, Instead Of A Living And Moving Being-an Echo, Not A Voice. The Man Who Has No Inner-life Is A Slave Of His Surroundings As The Barometer Is The Obedient Servant Of The Air.

If Man Was What He Ought To Be, He Would Be Adored By The Animals.

To Depersonalize Man Is The Dominant Drift Of Our Times.

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

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

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.

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 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.

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

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

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

What We Call Little Things Are Merely The Causes Of Great Things; They Are The Beginning, The Embryo, And It Is The Point Of Departure Which, Generally Speaking, Decides The Whole Future Of An Existence. One Single Black Speck May Be The Beginning Of Gangrene, Of A Storm, Of A Revolution.

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

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.

The Immense Majority Of Our Species Are Candidates For Humanity, And Nothing More.

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.

Will Localizes Us, Thought Universalizes Us.

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.

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