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If ignorance and passion are the foes of popular morality, it must be confessed that moral indifference is the malady of the cultivated classes. The modern separation of enlightenment and virtue, of thought and conscience, of the intellectual aristocracy from the honest and common crowd is the greatest danger that can threaten liberty.

— Henri-Frédéric Amiel Journal Intime (1882)

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More quotes by Henri-Frédéric Amiel

Happiness has no limits, because God has neither bottom nor bounds, and because happiness is nothing but the conquest of God through love.

Journal Intime (1882)

Knowledge, love, power,—there is the complete life.

Journal Intime (1882)

Liberty, equality — bad principles! The only true principle for humanity is justice; and justice to the feeble becomes necessarily protection or kindness.

Journal Intime (1882)

The man who has no inner life is the slave of his surroundings.

Journal Intime (1882)

Women wish to be loved without a why or a wherefore; not because they are pretty, or good, or well-bred, or graceful, or intelligent, but because they are themselves.

Journal Intime (1882)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Henri-Frédéric Amiel (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.