Common sense is the measure of the possible; it is composed of experience and prevision; it is calculation applied to life.

- Henri Frederic Amiel

Sympathy is the first condition of criticism.

- Henri Frederic Amiel

For purposes of action nothing is more useful than narrowness of thought combined with energy of will.

- Henri Frederic Amiel

Action is coarsened thought; thought becomes concrete, obscure, and unconscious.

- Henri Frederic Amiel

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

- Henri Frederic Amiel

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.

- Henri Frederic Amiel

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

- Henri Frederic Amiel

Action and faith enslave thought, both of them in order not be troubled or inconvenienced by reflection, criticism, and doubt.

- Henri Frederic Amiel

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

Thought is a kind of opium; it can intoxicate us, while still broad awake; it can make transparent the mountains and everything that exists.

- Henri Frederic Amiel

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.

- Henri Frederic Amiel

Order is power.

- Henri Frederic Amiel

We are never more discontented with others than when we are discontented with ourselves.

- Henri Frederic Amiel

Charm is the quality in others, that makes us more satisfied with ourselves.

- Henri Frederic Amiel

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

- Henri Frederic Amiel

Pure truth cannot be assimilated by the crowd; it must be communicated by contagion.

- Henri Frederic Amiel

Any landscape is a condition of the spirit.

- Henri Frederic Amiel

To live we must conquer incessantly, we must have the courage to be happy.

- Henri Frederic Amiel

Uncertainty is the refuge of hope.

- Henri Frederic Amiel

To marry unequally is to suffer equally.

- Henri Frederic Amiel