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“He who floats with the current, who does not guide himself according to higher principles, who has no ideal, no convictions – such a man is a mere article of the worlds furniture – a thing moved, instead of a living and moving being – an echo, not a voice.”
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“Destiny has two ways of crushing us - by refusing our wishes and by fulfilling them.”
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“At the bottom of the modern man there is always a great thirst for self-forgetfulness, self-distraction; he has a secret horror of all which makes him feel his own littleness; the eternal, the infinite, perfection, therefore scare and terrify him. He wishes to approve himself, to admire and congratulate himself; and therefore he turns away from all those problems and abysses which might recall to him his own nothingness.”
― Amiel's Journal
― Amiel's Journal
“Life is short and we never have enough time for the hearts of those who travel the way with us. O, be swift to love! Make haste to be kind.”
― Amiel's Journal
― Amiel's Journal
“I begin to realize that my memory is a great catacomb, and that below my actual standing-ground there is layer after layer of historical ashes.
Is the life of mind something like that of great trees of immemorial growth? Is the living layer of consciousness super-imposed upon hundreds of dead layers? Dead? No doubt this is too much to say, but still, when memory is slack the past becomes almost as though it had never been. To remember that we did know once is not a sign of possession but a sign of loss; it is like the number of an engraving which is no longer on its nail, the title of a volume no longer to be found on its shelf. My mind is the empty frame of a thousand vanished images.”
― Amiel's Journal, Vol 1: The Journal Intime of Henri-Frederic Amiel
Is the life of mind something like that of great trees of immemorial growth? Is the living layer of consciousness super-imposed upon hundreds of dead layers? Dead? No doubt this is too much to say, but still, when memory is slack the past becomes almost as though it had never been. To remember that we did know once is not a sign of possession but a sign of loss; it is like the number of an engraving which is no longer on its nail, the title of a volume no longer to be found on its shelf. My mind is the empty frame of a thousand vanished images.”
― Amiel's Journal, Vol 1: The Journal Intime of Henri-Frederic Amiel
Amiel’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Amiel’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
776 books
|
18 friends
42 books
|
35 friends
1 book
|
93 friends
22 books
|
13 friends
2 books
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104 friends
179 books
|
313 friends
0 books
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192 friends
0 books
|
10 friends
More friends…
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