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(no category)
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Oh, order! Material order, intellectual order, moral order! What a comfort and strength, and what an economy! To know where we are going and what we want; that is order. To keep ones word, to do the right thing, and at the right time: more order. To have everything under ones hand, to put ones whole army through its manoeuvres, to work with all ones resources: still order. To discipline ones habits and efforts and wishes, to organize ones life and distribute ones time, to measure ones duties and assert ones rights, to put ones capital and resources, ones talents and opportunities to profit: again and always order. Order is light, peace, inner freedom, self-determination: it is power. To conceive order, to return to order, to realize order in oneself, around oneself, by means of oneself, this is aesthetic and moral beauty, it is well-being, it is what ought to be.
-Henri Frederic Amiel
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Acceptance
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Accept life, and you must accept regret.
-Henri Frederic Amiel, 1876
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Action(s)
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Action is coarsened thought; thought becomes concrete, obscure, and unconscious.
-Henri Frederic Amiel
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Action and faith enslave thought, both of them in order not be troubled or inconvenienced by reflection, criticism, and doubt.
-Henri Frederic Amiel
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For purposes of action nothing is more useful than narrowness of thought combined with energy of will.
-Henri Frederic Amiel
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Actors, Acting
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We become actors without realizing it, and actors without wanting to.
-Henri Frederic Amiel
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Age
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To know how to grow old is the master work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living.
-Henri Frederic Amiel
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Analysis, to Analyze
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Analysis kills spontaneity. The grain once ground into flour springs and germinates no more.
-Henri Frederic Amiel
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Appreciation
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Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude. Gratitude is the completion of thankfulness. Thankfulness may consist merely of words. Gratitude is shown in acts.
-Henri Frederic Amiel
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Belief
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Our systems, perhaps, are nothing more than an unconscious apology for our faults --a gigantic scaffolding whose object is to hide from us our favorite sin.
-Henri Frederic Amiel
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Change
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So long as a person is capable of self-renewal they are a living being.
-Henri Frederic Amiel
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Character
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It is not what he had, or even what he does which expresses the worth of a man, but what he is.
-Henri Frederic Amiel
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Charisma
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Charm is the quality in others that makes us more satisfied with ourselves.
-Henri Frederic Amiel
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Charity
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It is by teaching that we teach ourselves, by relating that we observe, by affirming that we examine, by showing that we look, by writing that we think, by pumping that we draw water into the well.
-Henri Frederic Amiel
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Common Sense
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Common sense is the measure of the possible; it is composed of experience and prevision; it is calculation applied to life.
-Henri Frederic Amiel
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Communication
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Pure truth cannot be assimilated by the crowd; it must be communicated by contagion.
-Henri Frederic Amiel
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Consumerism
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Materialism coarsens and petrifies everything, making everything vulgar, and every truth false.
-Henri Frederic Amiel
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Crying
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Tears are the symbol of the inability of the soul to restrain its emotion and retain its self command.
-Henri Frederic Amiel
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Difficulty
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Conquering any difficulty always gives one a secret joy, for it means pushing back a boundary-line and adding to one's liberty.
-Henri Frederic Amiel, The Private Journal of Henri Frederic Amiel
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Doubt
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Uncertainty is the refuge of hope.
-Henri Frederic Amiel
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Fate & Destiny
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The best path through life is the highway.
-Henri Frederic Amiel
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Destiny has two ways of crushing us -- by refusing our wishes and by fulfilling them.
-Henri Frederic Amiel
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Genius
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Doing easily what others find difficult is talent; doing what is impossible for talent is genius.
-Henri Frederic Amiel
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To do easily what is difficult for others is the mark of talent. To do what is impossible for talent is the mark of genius.
-Henri Frederic Amiel
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Greatness & Great Things
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Great men are true men, the men in whom nature has succeeded. They are not extraordinary -- they are in the true order. It is the other species of men who are not what they ought to be.
-Henri Frederic Amiel
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Books by and about Henri Frederic Amiel