306 Quotes by Henri Frédéric Amiel

He who is silent is forgotten; he who does not advance falls back; he who stops is overwhelmed; out distanced, crushed; he who ceases t grow becomes smaller; he who leaves off, gives up; the condition of standing still is the beginning of the end.

It is not what he had, or even what he does which expresses the worth of a man, but what he is.

The mind must have for ballast the clear conception of duty, if it is not to fluctuate between levity and despair.

To learn new habits is everything, for it is to reach the substance of life. Life is but a tissue of habits.

Every life is a profession of faith ...

Woman is the salvation or the destruction of the family. She carries its destiny in the folds of her mantle.

Civilization is first of all a moral thing. Without truth, respect for duty, love of neighbor, and virtue, everything is destroyed. The morality of a society is alone the basis of civilization.

The test of every religious, political, or educational system is the man that it forms.

The masses are the material of democracy, but its form-that is to say, the laws which express the general reason, justice, and utility-can only be rightly shaped by wisdom, which is by no means a universal property.