Henri Frédéric Amiel’s diary, 1851

I have been reading, for six or seven hours without stopping the Pensées of Joubert. I felt at first a very strong attraction toward the book, and a deep interest…

I have almost finished these two volumes of Pensées and the greater part of the Correspondance. This last has especially charmed me; it is remarkable for grace,…

Read over the first book of Emile. I was revolted, contrary to all expectation, for I opened the book with a sort of hunger for style and beauty. I was conscious…

How many illustrious men whom I have known have been already reaped by death, Steffens, Marheineke, Neander, Mendelssohn, Thorwaldsen, Oelenschläger, Geijer,…

Was there ever any one so vulnerable as I? If I were a father how many griefs and vexations, a child might cause me. As a husband I should have a thousand ways of…

Read a part of Ruge’s volume “Die Academie” (1848) where the humanism of the neo-Hegelians in politics, religion, and literature is represented by correspondents or…

This evening I walked up and down on the Pont des Bergues, under a clear, moonless heaven delighting in the freshness of the water, streaked with light from the two…

To know how to be ready, a great thing, a precious gift, and one that implies calculation, grasp and decision. To be always ready a man must be able to cut a knot,…

Read the work of Tocqueville (“De la Democratie en Amérique.”) My impression is as yet a mixed one. A fine book, but I feel in it a little too much imitation of…

Tocqueville’s book has on the whole a calming effect upon the mind, but it leaves a certain sense of disgust behind. It makes one realize the necessity of what is…

It is ten o’clock at night. A strange and mystic moonlight, with a fresh breeze and a sky crossed by a few wandering clouds, makes our terrace delightful. These…

At the church of St. Gervais, a second sermon from Adolphe Monod, less grandiose perhaps but almost more original, and to me more edifying than that of last Sunday.…

The energetic subjectivity, which has faith in itself, which does not fear to be something particular and definite without any consciousness or shame of its…

Let mystery have its place in you; do not be always turning up your whole soil with the plowshare of self-examination, but leave a little fallow corner in your…