Henri Frédéric Amiel’s diary, 1852

Passed the afternoon in reading the Monologues of Schleiermacher. This little book made an impression on me almost as deep as it did twelve years ago, when I read…

Still the Monologues. Critically I defended myself enough against them yesterday; I may abandon myself now, without scruple and without danger, to the admiration…

Opinion has its value and even its power: to have it against us is painful when we are among friends, and harmful in the case of the outer world. We should neither…

What a lovely walk! Sky clear, sun rising, all the tints bright, all the outlines sharp, save for the soft and misty infinite of the lake. A pinch of white frost,…

This evening a feeling of emptiness took possession of me; and the solemn ideas of duty, the future, solitude, pressed themselves upon me. I gave myself to…

Once more I feel the spring languor creeping over me, the spring air about me. This morning the poetry of the scene, the song of the birds, the tranquil sunlight,…

This morning the air was calm, the sky slightly veiled. I went out into the garden to see what progress the spring was making. I strolled from the irises to the…

This morning read the epistle of St. James, the exegetical volume of Cellérier on this epistle, and a great deal of Pascal, after having first of all passed more…

It is women who, like mountain flowers, mark with most characteristic precision the gradation of social zones. The hierarchy of classes is plainly visible among…

Yesterday I was full of the philosophy of joy, of youth, of the spring, which smiles and the roses which intoxicate; I preached the doctrine of strength, and I…

Every despotism has a specially keen and hostile instinct for whatever keeps up human dignity, and independence. And it is curious to see scientific and realist…

Each sphere of being tends toward a higher sphere, and has already revelations and presentiments of it. The ideal under all its forms is the anticipation and the…

To-day I complete my thirty-first year.... The most beautiful poem there is, is life—life which discerns its own story in the making, in which inspiration and…

Walked for half an hour in the garden. A fine rain was falling, and the landscape was that of autumn. The sky was hung with various shades of gray, and mists…

I am capable of all the passions, for I bear them all within me. Like a tamer of wild beasts, I keep them caged and lassoed, but I sometimes hear them growling. I…

Responsibility is my invisible nightmare. To suffer through one’s own fault is a torment worthy of the lost, for so grief is envenomed by ridicule, and the worst…

A few pages of the Chrestomathie Française and Vinet’s remarkable letter at the head of the volume, have given me one or two delightful hours. As a thinker, as a…

How much have we not to learn from the Greeks, those immortal ancestors of ours! And how much better they solved their problem than we have solved ours. Their ideal…

St. Martin’s summer is still lingering, and the days all begin in mist. I ran for a quarter of an hour round the garden to get some warmth and suppleness. Nothing…

If I reject many portions of our theology and of our church system, it is that I may the better reach the Christ himself. My philosophy allows me this. It does not…