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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.

-Henri Frederic Amiel

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To Know How To

Henri Frederic Amiel

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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.

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Clever People Will Recognize And Tolerate Nothing But Cleverness.

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Philosophy Starts With Doubt And Loves Only Truth.

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.

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

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

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

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?

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

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.

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

It Gives Liberty And Breadth To Thought, To Learn To Judge Our Own Epoch From The Point Of View Of Universal History, History From The Point Of View Of Geological Periods, Geology From The Point Of View Of Astronomy.

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.

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.

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

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

The Laws Of Animality Govern Almost The Whole Of History.

Nothing Is More Characteristic Of A Man Than The Manner In Which He Behaves Toward Fools.

Sadness Takes Up The Pen More Readily Than Joy.

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

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

To Depersonalize Man Is The Dominant Drift Of Our Times.

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

Great Men Are The Real Men, In Them Nature Has Succeeded.

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.

Uncertainty Is The Refuge Of Hope.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Scientific Method

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

There Is No Repose For The Mind Except In The Absolute; For Feeling, Except In The Infinite; For The Soul, Except In The Divine.

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

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A Belief Is Not True Simply Because It Is Useful.

Positive Atheism

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

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

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

If Nationality Is Consent, The State Is Compulsion.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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Doubt Is The Accomplice Of Tyranny.

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Every Life Is A Profession Of Faith.

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.

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

Common Sense Is Calculation Applied To Life.

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

Will Localizes Us, Thought Universalizes Us.

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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.

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

Mother Of Marvels, Mysterious And Tender Nature, Why Do We Not Live More In Thee.

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

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

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.

It Gives Liberty And Breadth To Thought, To Learn To Judge Our Own Epoch From The Point Of View Of Universal History, History From The Point Of View Of Geological Periods, Geology From The Point Of View Of Astronomy.

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

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.

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

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

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

Doubt Of The Reality Of Love Ends By Making Us Doubt Everything.

Criticism Is Above All A Gift, An Intuition, A Matter Of Tact And Flair; It Cannot Be Taught Or Demonstrated--it Is An Art.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

A Man Only Understands What Is Akin To Something Already Existing In Himself.

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

The Laws Of Animality Govern Almost The Whole Of History.

Doubt Of The Reality Of Love Ends By Making Us Doubt Everything.

Life Alone Can Rekindle Life.

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

It Is Work Which Gives Flavor To Life.

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.

Hope Is Only The Love Of Life.

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

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

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.

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.

[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.

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.

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

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

What Governs Men Is The Fear Of Truth.

The Best Path Through Life Is The Highway.

Accept Life, And You Must Accept Regret.

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.

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

Any Landscape Is A Condition Of The Spirit.

American Landscape

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.

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 Only Substance Properly So Called Is The Soul.

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

Hope Is Only The Love Of Life.

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

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

Every Living Being Seeks Instinctively To Complete Itself.

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.

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.

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.

Sympathy Is The First Condition Of Criticism.

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.

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?

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

In Every Loving Woman There Is A Priestess Of The Past

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Analysis Kills Spontaneity.

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.

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

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.

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.

Cleverness Is Serviceable For Everything, Sufficient For Nothing.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Society Lives By Faith, And Develops By 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.

To Depersonalize Man Is The Dominant Drift Of Our Times.

Life Is But A Daily Oscillation Between Revolt And Submission.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Clever People Will Recognize And Tolerate Nothing But Cleverness.

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

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

The Great Artist And Thinker Are The Simplifiers.

Cleverness Is Serviceable For Everything, Sufficient For Nothing.

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

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