306 Quotes by Henri Frédéric Amiel

Let mystery have its place in you; do not be always turning up your whole soil with the ploughshare of self-examination, but leave a little fallow corner in your heart ready for any seed the winds may bring...

Everything which is, is thought, but not conscious and individual thought. The human intelligence is but the consciousness of being. It is what I have formulated before: Everything is a symbol of a symbol, and a symbol of what? of mind.

When everything has its proper place in our minds, we are able to stand in equilibrium with the rest of the world.

There is no curing a sick man who believes himself in health

Every situation is an equilibrium of forces; every life is a struggle between opposing forces working within the limits of a certain equilibrium

A thousand things advance; nine hundred and ninety nine retreat; That is progress.

Almost everything comes from almost nothing.

We must have the courage to be happy

What we call little things are merely the causes of great things; they are the beginning, the embryo, and it is the point of departure which, generally speaking, decides the whole future of an existence. One single black speck may be the beginning of gangrene, of a storm, of a revolution.