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| HENRI FREDERIC AMIEL |
| (1821-1881) |
| A belief is not true because it is useful. At the bottom of the modern man there is always a great thirst for self-forgetfulness, self-distraction...and therefore he turns away from all those problems and abysses which might recall to him his own nothingness. He who asks of life nothing but the improvement of his own nature...is less liable than anyone else to miss and waste life. The great artist is the simplifier. The man who has no inner life is the slave of his surroundings. 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. We become actors without realizing it, and actors without wanting to. Without passion man is a mere latent force and possibility, like the flint which awaits the shock of the iron before it can give forth its spark. |