The relation of thought to action filled my mind on waking, and I found myself carried toward a bizarre formula, which seems to have something of the… - Henri-Frédéric Amiel

" "

The relation of thought to action filled my mind on waking, and I found myself carried toward a bizarre formula, which seems to have something of the night still clinging about it: Action is but coarsened thought; thought become concrete, obscure, and unconscious. It seemed to me that our most trifling actions, of eating, walking, and sleeping, were the condensation of a multitude of truths and thoughts, and that the wealth of ideas involved was in direct proportion to the commonness of the action (as our dreams are the more active, the deeper our sleep). We are hemmed round with mystery, and the greatest mysteries are contained in what we see and do every day. In all spontaneity the work of creation is reproduced in analogy. When the spontaneity is unconscious, you have simple action; when it is conscious, intelligent and moral action.

English
Collect this quote

About Henri-Frédéric Amiel

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (27 September 1821 – 11 May 1881) was a Swiss philosopher, mystic, poet and critic.

Also Known As

Alternative Names: Henri-Frederic Amiel Henri Frédéric Amiel Amiel
Go Premium

Support Quotewise while enjoying an ad-free experience and premium features.

View Plans

Related quotes. More quotes will automatically load as you scroll down, or you can use the load more buttons.

Additional quotes by Henri-Frédéric Amiel

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.

[There still remains the question whether] he who discovers a new world in the depths of the invisible would not do wisely to plant on it a flag known to himself alone, and, like Achilles, "devour his heart in secret;" whether the greatest problems which have ever been guessed on earth had not better have remained buried in the brain which had found the key to them, and whether the deepest thinkers — those whose hand has been boldest in drawing aside the veil, and their eye keenest in fathoming the mysteries beyond it — had not better, like the prophetess of Ilion, have kept for heaven, and heaven only, secrets and mysteries which human tongue cannot truly express, nor human intelligence conceive.

Go Premium

Support Quotewise while enjoying an ad-free experience and premium features.

View Plans
Spite is anger which is afraid to show itself, it is an impotent fury conscious of its impotence. (30 December 1850)

Loading...