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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.

-Henri Frederic Amiel

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Henri Frederic Amiel

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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.

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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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Clever People Will Recognize And Tolerate Nothing But Cleverness.

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

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

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.

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

Positive Thinking

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

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

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.

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.

Self-interest Is An Inexhaustible Source Of Convenient Illusions. The Number Of Beings Who Wish To See Truly Is Extraordinarily Small.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Any Landscape Is A Condition Of The Spirit.

American Landscape

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

[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.

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.

Every Living Being Seeks Instinctively To Complete Itself.

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.

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

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

Kindness Is Gladdening The Hearts Of Those Who Are Traveling The Dark Journey With Us.

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.

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

Emancipation From Error Is The Condition Of Real Knowledge.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Life Alone Can Rekindle Life.

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.

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

Society Rests Upon Conscience, Not Upon Science.

In Order To See Christianity, One Must Forget All The Christians.

Happiness Has No Limits, Because God Has Neither Bottom Nor Bounds, And Because Happiness Is Nothing But The Conquest Of God Through Love.

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

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

To Marry Unequally Is To Suffer Equally.

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

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.

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.

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

Every Man Is A Priest, Even Involuntarily; His Conduct Is An Unspoken Sermon, Which Is Forever Preaching To Others.

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

A Musical Theme Once Exhausted, Finds Its Due Refuge And Repose In Silence.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Time Is The Supreme Illusion. It Is But The Inner Prism By Which We Decompose Being And Life, The Mode Under Which We Perceive Successively What Is Simultaneous In Idea.

Accept Life, And You Must Accept Regret.

Latent Genius Is But A Presumption. Everything That Can Be, Is Bound To Come Into Being, And What Never Comes Into Being Is Nothing.

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.

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

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

Dreams Are Excursions Into The Limbo Of Things, A Semi-deliverance From The Human Prison.

Almost Everything Comes From Almost Nothing.

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

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

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

Hope Is Only The Love Of Life.

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.

Love Is Faith And One Faith Leads To Another.

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

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

Doubt Is The Accomplice Of Tyranny.

Nothing Resembles Pride So Much As Discouragement.

Sympathy Is The First Condition Of Criticism.

Will Localizes Us, Thought Universalizes Us.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

What We Do Not Understand We Have No Right To Judge

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.

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.

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.

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

Sacrifice Still Exists Everywhere, And Everywhere The Elect Of Each Generation Suffers For The Salvation Of The Rest.

Whenever Conscience Speaks With A Divided, Uncertain, And Disputed Voice, It Is Not The Voice Of God. Descend Still Deeper Into Yourself, Until You Hear Nothing But A Clear, Undivided Voice, A Voice Which Does Away With Doubt And Brings With It Persuasion, Light, And Serenity.

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.

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

Thankfulness Is The Beginning Of Gratitude. Gratitude Is The Completion Of Thankfulness. Thankfulness May Consist Merely Of Words. Gratitude Is Shown In Acts.

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

Almost Everything Comes From Almost Nothing.

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

A Musical Theme Once Exhausted, Finds Its Due Refuge And Repose In Silence.

The Best Path Through Life Is The Highway.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Time Is The Supreme Illusion. It Is But The Inner Prism By Which We Decompose Being And Life, The Mode Under Which We Perceive Successively What Is Simultaneous In Idea.

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

Melancholy Is At The Bottom Of Everything, Just As At The End Of All Rivers Is The Sea. Can It Be Otherwise In A World Where Nothing Lasts, Where All That We Have Loved Or Shall Love Must Die? Is Death, Then, The Secret Of Life? The Gloom Of An Eternal Mourning Enwraps, More Or Less Closely, Every Serious And Thoughtful Soul, As Night Enwraps The Universe.

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.

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

A Belief Is Not True Simply Because It Is Useful.

Positive Atheism

Materialism Coarsens And Petrifies Everything, Making Everything Vulgar, And Every Truth False.

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

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

Scientific Method

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.

Melancholy Is At The Bottom Of Everything, Just As At The End Of All Rivers Is The Sea. Can It Be Otherwise In A World Where Nothing Lasts, Where All That We Have Loved Or Shall Love Must Die? Is Death, Then, The Secret Of Life? The Gloom Of An Eternal Mourning Enwraps, More Or Less Closely, Every Serious And Thoughtful Soul, As Night Enwraps The Universe.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Emancipation From Error Is The Condition Of Real Knowledge.

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

Time Wasted Is A Theft From God.

The Stationary Condition Is The Beginning Of The End

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.

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

Clever People Will Recognize And Tolerate Nothing But Cleverness.

In Every Loving Woman There Is A Priestess Of The Past

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

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

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.

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

Society Lives By Faith, And Develops By Science.

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

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

To Depersonalize Man Is The Dominant Drift Of Our Times.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

[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.

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

Positive Thinking

Doubt Is The Accomplice Of Tyranny.

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

Society Rests Upon Conscience, Not Upon Science.

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.

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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.

Philosophy Starts With Doubt And Loves Only Truth.

Joy Is The Vital Air Of The Soul.

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.

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

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

What Governs Men Is The Fear Of Truth.

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.

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

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

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.

Cleverness Is Serviceable For Everything, Sufficient For Nothing.

Before Crime Is Committed Conscience Must Be Corrupted, And Every Bad Man Who Succeeds In Reaching A High Point Of Wickedness Begins With This.

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 Unfinished Is Nothing.

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

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.

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.

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