Henri Frédéric Amiel’s diary, 1854

A walk. The atmosphere incredibly pure, a warm caressing gentleness in the sunshine—joy in one’s whole being. Seated motionless upon a bench on the Tranchées,…

Everything tends to become fixed, solidified, and crystallized in this French tongue of ours, which seeks form and not substance, the result and not its formation,…

What message had this lake for me, with its sad serenity, its soft and even tranquility, in which was mirrored the cold monotonous pallor of mountains and clouds?…

When we are doing nothing in particular, it is then that we are living through all our being; and when we cease to add to our growth it is only that we may ripen…