Henri Frederic Amiel Men Quotations

Man becomes man only by his intelligence, but he is man only by his heart.

The man who has no inner-life is a slave to his surroundings.

The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides. Accept life, and you must accept regret.

Self-interest is but the survival of the animal in us. Humanity only begins for man with self-surrender.

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.

It is not what he had, or even what he does which expresses the worth of a man, but what he is.

The test of every religious, political, or educational system is the man that it forms.

Order is man's greatest need, and his true well-being.

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.

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

Nothing is more characteristic of a man than the manner in which he behaves toward fools.

To depersonalize man is the dominant drift of our times.

Every man is a priest, even involuntarily; his conduct is an unspoken sermon, which is forever preaching to others.

Man is a passion which brings a will into play, which works an intelligence.

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.

There is no curing a sick man who believes himself to be in health.

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.

Great men are the real men, in them nature has succeeded.

A man only understands what is akin to something already existing in himself.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

At the bottom of the modern man there is always a great thirst for self-forgetfulness, self-distraction . . . and therefore he turns away from all those problems and abysses which might recall to him his own nothingness.

The ideal doctor would be a man endowed with profound knowledge of life and of the soul, intuitively divining any suffering or disorder of whatever kind, and restoring peace by his mere presence.

Men prefer the false due to habit, passion, will. Preference for truth is rare. Men are ruled by their fear of truth.

What governs men is the fear of truth.

If man was what he ought to be, he would be adored by the animals...

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.

To be always ready a man must be able to cut a knot, for everything cannot be untied.

Each man enters into God so much as God enters into him.

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.

Men don't achieve truth because they lack humility and love of truth. They won't criticize their own beliefs. Truth would overwhelm them.

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.