"An error is the more dangerous in proportion to the degree of truth which it contains." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1852)
"Common sense is the measure of the possible; it is composed of experience and prevision; it is calculation applied to life." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1852)
"The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1856)
"To know how to suggest is the great art of teaching. To attain it we must be able to guess what will interest." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, 1864)
"Nature does at least what she can to translate into visible form the wealth of the creative formula. By the vastness of the abysses into which she penetrates, in the effort - the unsuccessful effort - to house and contain the eternal thought, we may measure the greatness of the divine mind." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1866)
"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." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1868)
"Pure truth cannot be assimilated by the crowd; it must be communicated by contagion." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1875)
"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." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, 1882)
""Time is but the measure of the difficulty of a conception. Pure thought has scarcely any need of time, since it perceives the two ends of an idea almost at the same moment." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, 1883)
"Time is but the space between our memories; as soon as we cease to perceive this space, time has disappeared." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1884)
"Every situation is an equilibrium of forces; every life is a struggle between opposing forces working within the limits of a certain equilibrium." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1885)
"Understanding [...] must begin by saturating itself with facts and realities. [...] Besides, we only understand that which is already within us. To understand is to possess the thing understood, first by sympathy and then by intelligence. Instead of first dismembering and dissecting the object to be conceived, we should begin by laying hold of it in its ensemble. The procedure is the same, whether we study a watch or a plant, a work of art or a character." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1886)
"The art which is grand and yet simple is that which presupposes the greatest elevation both in artist and in public." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1893)
"The test of every religious, political, or educational system is the man that it forms." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1893)
"Time is the supreme illusion. It is but the inner prism by which we decompose being and life, the mode under which we perceive successively what is simultaneous in idea." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1893)
"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-Frédéric Amiel, [journal entry] 1896)
"Analysis kills spontaneity. The grain once ground into flour springs and germinates no more." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel)
"Minds accustomed to analysis never allow objections more than half-value, because they appreciate the variable and relative elements which enter in." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel)
"No forms of error are so erroneous as those that have the appearance without the reality of mathematical precision." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel)
"Time and space are fragments of the infinite for the use of finite creatures." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel)
"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-Frédéric Amiel)
"Wisdom consists in rising superior both to madness and to common sense, and in lending one's self to the universal delusion without becoming its dupe." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel)
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