A diarist who searched for harmony and perfection, Swiss poet and philosopher Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821–1881) was born on this day in Geneva. A sensitive, frail child, he was an orphaned at age 12.

"Blessed be childhood, which brings down something of heaven into the midst of our rough earthliness," he said.

As a student of German philosophy in Berlin, Amiel threw himself into his educational pursuits with a passion. "My horizon is vaster; I have seen much more of men, things, countries, peoples, books; I have a greater mass of experiences," he explained.

Influenced by the writings of Friedrich Schelling and Georg Hegel, Amiel was a private soul who became an esteemed philosophy professor. Often quoted, he is best known for his Journal intime, a masterpiece of honest self-observation, which was published after his death.

With remarkable insight, he once wrote, "He who floats with the current, who does not guide himself according to higher principles, who has no ideal, no convictions-such a man is a mere article of the world's furniture-a thing moved, instead of a living and moving being-an echo, not a voice."

More AMIEL Quotations

Let your heart seek harmony within.