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

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Macmillan and Company, 1885 - Authors, Swiss - 487 pages

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Page 269 - there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance.
Page 2 - 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 482 - 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 xlvii - To the old paths, my soul ! Oh, be it so ! I bear the workday burden of dull life About these footsore flags of a weary world, Heaven knows how long it has not been ; at once, Lo ! I am in the spirit on the Lord's day With John in Patmos. Is it not enough, One day in seven? and if this should go, If this pure solace should desert my mind, What were all else? I dare not risk this loss. To the old paths, my soul ! Sp.
Page 484 - A mesure qu'on a plus d'esprit, on trouve qu'il ya plus d'hommes originaux. Les gens du commun ne trouvent pas de différence entre les hommes.
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 162 - To the materialist philosopher the beautiful is a mere accident, and therefore rare. To the spiritualist philosopher the beautiful is the rule, the law, the universal foundation of things, to which every form returns as soon as the force of accident is withdrawn. Why are we ugly? Because we are not in the angelic state, because we are evil, morose, and unhappy.
Page 290 - It is in the novel that the average vulgarity of German society, and its inferiority to the societies of France and England are most clearly visible. The notion of a thing's jarring on the taste is wanting to German aesthetics.
Page 274 - At bottom, everything depends upon the presence or absence of one single element in the soul — hope. All the activity of man, all his efforts and all his enterprises, presuppose a hope in him of attaining an end. Once kill this hope and his movements become senseless, spasmodic, and convulsive, like those of some one falling from a height.
Page 427 - They are eager for gold, for power, for dominion; their aim is to crush men and to enslave nature. They show an obstinate interest in means, and have not a thought for the end. They confound being with individual being, and the expansion of the self with happiness — that is to say, they do not live by the soul; they ignore the unchangeable and the eternal; they live at the periphery of their being, because they are unable to penetrate to its axis. They are excited, ardent, positive, because they...

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