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

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Macmillan, 1890 - 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 - ... la 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 244 - 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 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 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 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 105 - The ideal, after all, is truer than the real : for the ideal is the eternal element in perishable things : it is their type, their sum, their raison d'&tre, their formula in the book of the Creator, and therefore at once the most exact and the most condensed expression of them.
Page 182 - 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.

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