Amiel's Journal: The Journal Intime of Henri Frédéric Amiel, Volumes 1-2 |
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Common terms and phrases
able Amiel beauty become believe charm Châteaubriand Christian cism conscience consciousness critical death desire destiny divine doubt dream duty eternal everything evil existence faith feel force French friends Geneva Genevese German give Goethe happiness harmony heart heaven HENRI-FRÉDÉRIC AMIEL holiness hope human Hyères idea ideal illusion imagination impression individual infinite inner instinct intellectual Journal Intime justice kind labour less Liberal Christianity liberty literary living Madame de Staël Maine de Biran matter Maurice de Guérin melancholy ment mind monad moral Mozart mystery nature ness never once one's oneself ourselves passion peace perfect philosopher poetry possess pure realise reality religion religious Sainte-Beuve Scherer Schopenhauer secret seems sense society soul speak spirit Stoicism suffering talent things thought tion true truth understand universal Victor Cherbuliez Victor Hugo vidual whole WILLIAM WINTER words writer
Popular passages
Page 64 - there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance.
Page 234 - Chacun se réveille à ce son, Les Brebis, le Chien, le Garçon. Le pauvre Loup, dans cet esclandre, Empêché par son hoqueton, Ne put ni fuir ni se défendre. Toujours par quelque endroit fourbes se laissent prendre. Quiconque est Loup agisse en Loup : C'est le plus certain de beaucoup.
Page xcii - Christianity is above all religious, and 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.
Page 7 - the eye by which I see God is the same eye by which He sees me.' 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.
Page 18 - Reality, the present, the irreparable, the necessary, repel and even terrify me. I have too much imagination, conscience, and penetration, and not enough character. The life of thought alone seems to me to have enough elasticity and immensity, to be free enough from the irreparable ; practical life makes me afraid.
Page 314 - Where are the great, whom thou would'st wish to praise thee ? Where are the pure, whom thou would'st choose to love thee? Where are the brave, to stand supreme above thee, Whose high commands would cheer, whose chidings raise thee? Seek, seeker, in thyself ; submit to find In the stones, bread, and life in the blank mind.
Page 153 - ... Their methods of investigation are far too elementary; a doctor who does not read you to the bottom is ignorant of essentials. To me 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. Such a doctor is possible, but the greater number of them lack the higher and inner life, they know nothing of the transcendent laboratories of nature; they seem to me...
Page xlviii - ... admire the variety of his knowledge, the precision of his ideas, the charm of his quick intelligence! We found him always, besides, kindly and amiable, a nature one might trust and lean upon with perfect security. He awakened in us but one regret; we could not understand how it was a man so richly gifted produced nothing, or only trivialities" In these last words of M. Scherer's we have come across the determining fact of Amiel's life in its relation to the outer world — that "sterility of...
Page 67 - My privilege is to be the spectator of my own life-drama, to be fully conscious of the tragi-comedy of my own destiny, and, more than that, to be in the secret of the tragicomic itself — that is to say, to be unable to take my illusions seriously, to see myself, so to speak, from the theatre on the stage, or to be like a man looking from beyond the tomb into existence. I feel myself forced to feign a particular interest in my individual part, while all the time I am living in the confidence of...
Page 191 - We must treat our subject brutally and not be always trembling lest we should be doing it a wrong. We must be able to transmute and absorb it into our own substance. This sort of confident effrontery is beyond me ; my whole nature tends to that impersonality which respects and subordinates itself to the object; it is love of truth which holds me back from concluding and deciding.