It gives liberty and breadth to thought, to learn to judge our own epoch from the point of view of universal history, history from the point of view of geological periods, geology from the point of view of astronomy.
Henri Frederic AmielLife is an apprenticeship to the constant renunciations, to the steady failure of our claims, our hopes, our powers, our liberty.
Henri Frederic AmielHe 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 thing moved, instead of a living and moving being-an echo, not a voice. The man who has no inner-life is a slave of his surroundings as the barometer is the obedient servant of the air.
Henri Frederic Amiel