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

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Macmillan, 1889 - 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 xli - And the faith of his youth and his maturity bears the shock of suffering, and supports him through his last hours. He writes a few months before the end : ' The animal expires ; man surrenders his soul to the author of the soul.' . . . ' We dream alone, we suffer alone, we die alone, we inhabit the last resting-place alone. But there is nothing to prevent us from opening our solitude to God. And so what was an austere monologue becomes dialogue, reluctance becomes docility, renunciation passes into...
Page 121 - 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 301 - 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 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 301 - In eurem Namen, Mütter, die ihr thront Im Grenzenlosen, ewig einsam wohnt, Und doch gesellig! Euer Haupt umschweben Des Lebens Bilder, regsam, ohne Leben. Was einmal war in allem Glanz und Schein, Es regt sich dort; denn es will ewig sein.
Page 266 - A mere nothing separates me from idiocy, from madness, -from death. The slightest breach is enough to endanger all this frail, ingenious edifice, which calls itself my being and my life. Not even the dragonfly symbol is enough to express its frailty ; the soap-bubble is the best poetical translation of all this illusory magnificence, this fugitive apparition of the tiny self, which is we, and we it. ... A miserable night enough. Awakened three or four times by my bronchitis. Sadness — restlessness....
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 4 - Whether we will or no, there is an esoteric doctrine — there is a relative revelation; each man enters into God so much as God enters into him ; or, as Angelus, I think, said, " The eye by which I see God is the same eye by which He sees me.

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