TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY ®  •  TODAYINSCI ®
Celebrating 24 Years on the Web
Find science on or your birthday

Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz
Who said: “I believe that this Nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Dictionary of Science Quotations > Scientist Names Index A > Henri-Frédéric Amiel Quotes

Thumbnail of Henri-Frédéric Amiel (source)
Henri-Frédéric Amiel
(27 Sep 1821 - 11 May 1881)

Swiss philosopher and poet who wrote Journal Intime (published posthumously, 1883-84), his introspective diary kept from 1847. He was professor of aesthetics (1849) and moral philosophy (1853) at Geneva.

Science Quotes by Henri-Frédéric Amiel (16 quotes)

…the ideal doctor would be a man endowed with profound knowledge of life and of the soul, intuitively divining any suffering or disorder of whatever kind, and restoring peace by his mere presence.
— Henri-Frédéric Amiel
Amiel's Journal The Journal Intime of Henri-Frederic Amiel (22 Aug 1873), trans. By Mrs Humphry Ward (1889), Vol 2., 153.
Science quotes on:  |  Disorder (45)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Endowed (52)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Kind (564)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Peace (116)  |  Physician (284)  |  Presence (63)  |  Profound (105)  |  Soul (235)  |  Suffering (68)  |  Whatever (234)

[I]t is truth alone—scientific, established, proved, and rational truth—which is capable of satisfying nowadays the awakened minds of all classes. We may still say perhaps, 'faith governs the world,'—but the faith of the present is no longer in revelation or in the priest—it is in reason and in science.
— Henri-Frédéric Amiel
Entry for 15 Nov 1876 in Amiel’s Journal: The Journal Intime of Henri-Frédéric Amiel, trans. Humphry Ward (1893), 234.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Capable (174)  |  Faith (209)  |  Govern (66)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Present (630)  |  Priest (29)  |  Rational (95)  |  Reason (766)  |  Revelation (51)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Still (614)  |  Truth (1109)  |  World (1850)

[T]he habit of scientific analysis … exhausts the material offered to it…
— Henri-Frédéric Amiel
Entry for 1 Sep 1875 in Amiel’s Journal: The Journal Intime of Henri-Frédéric Amiel, trans. Humphry Ward (1893), 225.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Habit (174)  |  Material (366)  |  Offer (142)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Method (200)

An error is the more dangerous in proportion to the degree of truth which it contains.
— Henri-Frédéric Amiel
Entry for 26 Dec 1852 in Amiel’s Journal: The Journal Intime of Henri-Frédéric Amiel, trans. Humphry Ward (1893), 34.
Science quotes on:  |  Dangerous (108)  |  Degree (277)  |  Error (339)  |  More (2558)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Truth (1109)

Common sense is the measure of the possible; it is composed of experience and prevision; it is calculation applied to life.
— Henri-Frédéric Amiel
Entry for 26 Dec 1852 in Amiel’s Journal: The Journal Intime of Henri-Frédéric Amiel, trans. Humphry Ward (1893), 34.
Science quotes on:  |  Applied (176)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Experience (494)  |  Life (1870)  |  Measure (241)  |  Possible (560)  |  Sense (785)

Dreams are excursions into the limbo of things, a semi-deliverance from the human prison.
— Henri-Frédéric Amiel
Amiel's Journal The Journal Intime of Henri-Frederic Amiel, (3 Dec 1872), trans. By Mrs Humphry Ward (1889),131.
Science quotes on:  |  Dream (222)  |  Excursion (12)  |  Human (1512)  |  Prison (13)  |  Thing (1914)

Health is the first of all liberties, and happiness gives us the energy which is the basis of health.
— Henri-Frédéric Amiel
Amiel's Journal The Journal Intime of Henri-Frederic Amiel, (3 Apr 1865), trans. By Mrs Humphry Ward (1889),104.
Science quotes on:  |  Basis (180)  |  Energy (373)  |  First (1302)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Health (210)

Life is short and we have not too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark way with us. Oh, be swift to love! Make haste to be kind.
— Henri-Frédéric Amiel
Entry for 16 Dec 1868 in Amiel’s Journal: The Journal Intime (1896), Vol. 2, 15, as translated by Mrs. Humphry Ward.
Science quotes on:  |  Dark (145)  |  Glad (7)  |  Haste (6)  |  Heart (243)  |  Kind (564)  |  Life (1870)  |  Love (328)  |  Short (200)  |  Swift (16)  |  Time (1911)  |  Travel (125)  |  Way (1214)

Pure truth cannot be assimilated by the crowd; it must be communicated by contagion.
— Henri-Frédéric Amiel
Entry for 26 Oct 1875 in Amiel’s Journal: The Journal Intime of Henri-Frédéric Amiel, trans. Humphry Ward (1893), 227.
Science quotes on:  |  Contagion (9)  |  Must (1525)  |  Pure (299)  |  Truth (1109)

Society lives by faith, develops by science.
— Henri-Frédéric Amiel
Entry for 7 May 1870 in Amiel’s Journal: The Journal Intime of Henri-Frédéric Amiel, trans. Humphry Ward (1893), 169.
Science quotes on:  |  Develop (278)  |  Faith (209)  |  Live (650)  |  Society (350)

Society rests upon conscience, not upon science.
— Henri-Frédéric Amiel
In James Wood, Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources (1893), 396:36.
Science quotes on:  |  Conscience (52)  |  Rest (287)  |  Society (350)

There is no curing a sick man who believes himself to be in health.
— Henri-Frédéric Amiel
Amiel's Journal The Journal Intime of Henri-Frederic Amiel, (6 Feb 1877), trans. By Mrs Humphry Ward (1889),131.
Science quotes on:  |  Disease (340)  |  Health (210)  |  Himself (461)  |  Man (2252)  |  Sick (83)

To do easily what is difficult for others is the mark of talent. To do what is impossible for talent is the mark of genius.
— Henri-Frédéric Amiel
Entry for 17 Dec 1856 in Amiel’s Journal: The Journal Intime of Henri-Frédéric Amiel, trans. Humphry Ward (1893), 60.
Science quotes on:  |  Difficult (263)  |  Do (1905)  |  Genius (301)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Other (2233)  |  Talent (99)

To know how to grow old is the master-work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living.
— Henri-Frédéric Amiel
Amiel's Journal The Journal Intime of Henri-Frederic Amiel, (21 Sep 1874), trans. By Mrs Humphry Ward (1889),177.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Art (680)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Great (1610)  |  Grow (247)  |  Know (1538)  |  Living (492)  |  Master (182)  |  Most (1728)  |  Old (499)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Work (1402)

True poetry is truer than science, because it is synthetic, and seizes at once what the combination of all the sciences is able, at most, to attain as a final result.
— Henri-Frédéric Amiel
Entry for 31 Oct 1852 in Amiel’s Journal: The Journal Intime of Henri-Frédéric Amiel, trans. Humphry Ward (1893), 30.
Science quotes on:  |  Attain (126)  |  Combination (150)  |  Final (121)  |  Most (1728)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Result (700)  |  Synthetic (27)

Understanding … must begin by saturating itself with facts and realities. … Besides, we only understand that which is already within us. To understand is to possess the thing understood, first by sympathy and then by intelligence. Instead of first dismembering and dissecting the object to be conceived, we should begin by laying hold of it in its ensemble. The procedure is the same, whether we study a watch or a plant, a work of art or a character.
— Henri-Frédéric Amiel
(7 Apr 1886). In Mary A. Ward (trans.), Amiel’s Journal: The Journal Intime of Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1889), 119.
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Art (680)  |  Begin (275)  |  Character (259)  |  Dismember (2)  |  Dissection (35)  |  Education (423)  |  Ensemble (8)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  First (1302)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Must (1525)  |  Object (438)  |  Plant (320)  |  Possess (157)  |  Procedure (48)  |  Reality (274)  |  Study (701)  |  Sympathy (35)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Understood (155)  |  Watch (118)  |  Work (1402)  |  Work Of Art (3)


Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
Quotations by:Albert EinsteinIsaac NewtonLord KelvinCharles DarwinSrinivasa RamanujanCarl SaganFlorence NightingaleThomas EdisonAristotleMarie CurieBenjamin FranklinWinston ChurchillGalileo GalileiSigmund FreudRobert BunsenLouis PasteurTheodore RooseveltAbraham LincolnRonald ReaganLeonardo DaVinciMichio KakuKarl PopperJohann GoetheRobert OppenheimerCharles Kettering  ... (more people)

Quotations about:Atomic  BombBiologyChemistryDeforestationEngineeringAnatomyAstronomyBacteriaBiochemistryBotanyConservationDinosaurEnvironmentFractalGeneticsGeologyHistory of ScienceInventionJupiterKnowledgeLoveMathematicsMeasurementMedicineNatural ResourceOrganic ChemistryPhysicsPhysicianQuantum TheoryResearchScience and ArtTeacherTechnologyUniverseVolcanoVirusWind PowerWomen ScientistsX-RaysYouthZoology  ... (more topics)
Sitewide search within all Today In Science History pages:
Visit our Science and Scientist Quotations index for more Science Quotes from archaeologists, biologists, chemists, geologists, inventors and inventions, mathematicians, physicists, pioneers in medicine, science events and technology.

Names index: | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

Categories index: | 1 | 2 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
Thank you for sharing.
- 100 -
Sophie Germain
Gertrude Elion
Ernest Rutherford
James Chadwick
Marcel Proust
William Harvey
Johann Goethe
John Keynes
Carl Gauss
Paul Feyerabend
- 90 -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lise Meitner
Charles Babbage
Ibn Khaldun
Euclid
Ralph Emerson
Robert Bunsen
Frederick Banting
Andre Ampere
Winston Churchill
- 80 -
John Locke
Bronislaw Malinowski
Bible
Thomas Huxley
Alessandro Volta
Erwin Schrodinger
Wilhelm Roentgen
Louis Pasteur
Bertrand Russell
Jean Lamarck
- 70 -
Samuel Morse
John Wheeler
Nicolaus Copernicus
Robert Fulton
Pierre Laplace
Humphry Davy
Thomas Edison
Lord Kelvin
Theodore Roosevelt
Carolus Linnaeus
- 60 -
Francis Galton
Linus Pauling
Immanuel Kant
Martin Fischer
Robert Boyle
Karl Popper
Paul Dirac
Avicenna
James Watson
William Shakespeare
- 50 -
Stephen Hawking
Niels Bohr
Nikola Tesla
Rachel Carson
Max Planck
Henry Adams
Richard Dawkins
Werner Heisenberg
Alfred Wegener
John Dalton
- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
Edward Wilson
Johannes Kepler
Gustave Eiffel
Giordano Bruno
JJ Thomson
Thomas Kuhn
Leonardo DaVinci
Archimedes
David Hume
- 30 -
Andreas Vesalius
Rudolf Virchow
Richard Feynman
James Hutton
Alexander Fleming
Emile Durkheim
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Hooke
Charles Kettering
- 20 -
Carl Sagan
James Maxwell
Marie Curie
Rene Descartes
Francis Crick
Hippocrates
Michael Faraday
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
- 10 -
Aristotle
John Watson
Rosalind Franklin
Michio Kaku
Isaac Asimov
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
Florence Nightingale
Isaac Newton


by Ian Ellis
who invites your feedback
Thank you for sharing.
Today in Science History
Sign up for Newsletter
with quiz, quotes and more.