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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.

-Henri Frederic Amiel

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To Be Misunderstood Even

Henri Frederic Amiel

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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.

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

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Life Alone Can Rekindle Life.

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

The Unfinished Is Nothing.

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

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 My Consciousness Is Withdrawn Into Itself; I Hear My Heart Beating, And My Life Passing.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.

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

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

Almost Everything Comes From Almost Nothing.

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

The Laws Of Animality Govern Almost The Whole Of History.

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

Positive Thinking

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

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.

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.

The Fire Which Enlightens Is The Same Fire Which Consumes.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

The Best Path Through Life Is The Highway.

If Nationality Is Consent, The State Is Compulsion.

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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.

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.

True Humility Is Contentment.

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

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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.

Clever People Will Recognize And Tolerate Nothing But Cleverness.

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

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.

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

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

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.

It Is Work Which Gives Flavor To 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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Uncertainty Is The Refuge Of Hope.

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

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.

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

The Unfinished Is Nothing.

What We Do Not Understand We Have No Right To Judge

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

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

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.

To Depersonalize Man Is The Dominant Drift Of Our Times.

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.

The Ideal, After All, Is True Than The Real: For The Ideal Is The Eternal Element In Perishable Things.

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

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

Every Life Is A Profession Of Faith.

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.

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.

Society Lives By Faith, And Develops By Science.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Common Sense Is Calculation Applied To Life.

Any Landscape Is A Condition Of The Spirit.

American Landscape

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

Common Sense Is Calculation Applied To Life.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Time Wasted Is A Theft From God.

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.

Sympathy Is The First Condition Of Criticism.

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

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

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

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Society Rests Upon Conscience, Not Upon Science.

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

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.

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.

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.

Every Living Being Seeks Instinctively To Complete Itself.

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

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

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

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

Accept Life, And You Must Accept Regret.

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

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.

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