Amiel's Journal: The Journal Intime of Henri Frédéric Amiel

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Macmillan, 1891 - Authors, Swiss - 318 pages

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Page 168 - there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance.
Page 289 - ... prier, La cruelle qu'elle est se bouche les oreilles Et nous laisse crier. Le pauvre en sa cabane, où le chaume le couvre, Est sujet à ses lois; Et la garde qui veille aux barrières du Louvre N'en défend point nos rois. De murmurer contre elle et perdre patience, II est mal à propos; Vouloir ce que Dieu veut est la seule science Qui nous met en repos.
Page 167 - The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Page xli - 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 2 - Never to tire, never to grow cold ; to be patient, sympathetic, tender ; to look for the budding flower and the opening heart ; to hope always, like God ; to love always, — this is duty.
Page 304 - Entre toutes les différentes expressions qui peuvent rendre une seule de nos pensées, il n'y en a qu'une qui soit la bonne. On ne la rencontre pas toujours en parlant ou en écrivant ; il est vrai néanmoins qu'elle existe, que tout ce qui ne l'est point est faible, et ne satisfait point un homme d'esprit qui veut se faire entendre.
Page 299 - 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 9 - 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 13 - The statistician will register a growing progress, and the moralist a gradual decline: on the one hand, a progress of things; on the other, a decline of souls. The useful will take the place of the beautiful, industry of art, political economy of religion, and arithmetic of poetry.
Page 30 - My privilege is to be the spectator of my own life-drama, to be fully conscious of the tragicomedy of my own destiny, and, more than that, to be in the secret of the tragi-comic 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...

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