Henri-Frédéric Amiel

"My privilege is to be spectator of my 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 tragi-comic itself, that is to say, to be…"

"The man who has no inner life is the slave of his surroundings."

"Society lives by faith, develops by reason."

"There is a great affinity in me with the Hindu genius - that mind, vast, imaginative, loving, dreamy and speculative, but destitute of ambition, personality and will. Pantheistic disinterestedness, th…"

"Liberty, equality — bad principles! The only true principle for humanity is justice; and justice to the feeble becomes necessarily protection or kindness."

"A man without passion is only a latent force, only a possibility, like a stone waiting for the blow from the iron to give forth sparks."

"Life is the apprenticeship to progressive renunciation, to the steady diminution of our claims, of our hopes, of our powers, of our liberty."

"Put personal ambition away from you, and then you will find consolation in living or in dying, whatever may happen to you."