Henri Frédéric Amiel’s diary, 1875

In spite of my sleeping draught I have had a bad night. Once it seemed as if I must choke, for I could breathe neither way. Could I be more fragile, more sensitive,…

The French mind, according to Gioberti, apprehends only the outward form of truth, and exaggerates it by isolating it, so that it acts as a solvent upon the…

The whole atmosphere has a luminous serenity, a limpid clearness. The islands are like swans swimming in a golden stream. Peace, splendor, boundless space!... And I…

I have already gone through the various emotions of leave-taking. I have been wandering slowly through the streets and up the castle hill, gathering a harvest of…

Life is but a daily oscillation between revolt and submission, between the instinct of the ego, which is to expand, to take delight in its own tranquil sense of…

A word used by Sainte-Beuve à propos of Benjamin Constant has struck me: it is the word consideration. To possess or not to possess consideration was to Madame de…

I have been working for some hours at my article on Mme. de Staël, but with what labor, what painful effort! When I write for publication every word is misery, and…

I have been listening to M. Taine’s first lecture (on the “Ancien Régime”) delivered in the university hall. It was an extremely substantial piece of work—clear,…

All origins are secret; the principle of every individual or collective life is a mystery—that is to say, something irrational, inexplicable, not to be defined. We…