"It is by teaching that we teach ourselves, by relating that we observe, by affirming that we examine, by showing that we look, by writing that we think, by pumping that we draw water into the well"
About this Quote
Amiel’s line is a neat piece of philosophical self-surveillance disguised as advice. Its engine is a repeated paradox: the action that looks outward is, in fact, the mechanism of inward formation. “By teaching that we teach ourselves” isn’t a sentimental nod to mentorship; it’s a claim about how consciousness sharpens under the pressure of having to make itself legible. The moment you must explain, you discover the gaps, the evasions, the lazy metaphors you were living on.
The syntax does most of the work. That drumbeat of “by X that we Y” reads like a set of lab instructions for the mind. Each pairing nudges you from performance to perception: “relating” becomes “observing,” “affirming” becomes “examining.” Amiel is suspicious of private certainty; he treats assertion not as a final stop but as a stress test. Public language forces accountability. Even “showing” becomes “looking”: to present something, you have to actually see it, not just gesture at it.
The last clause jolts the sequence with a homely image: “by pumping that we draw water into the well.” It’s deliberately counterintuitive - pumping usually draws water out. Amiel flips it to suggest cultivation rather than extraction: the work of expression replenishes the source. In the 19th-century context of introspective, journal-keeping moral psychology (Amiel is famous for his Journal intime), this reads as a defense of disciplined outward practice against the romantic fantasy that depth is purely internal. You don’t find the self by staring harder. You build it by doing.
The syntax does most of the work. That drumbeat of “by X that we Y” reads like a set of lab instructions for the mind. Each pairing nudges you from performance to perception: “relating” becomes “observing,” “affirming” becomes “examining.” Amiel is suspicious of private certainty; he treats assertion not as a final stop but as a stress test. Public language forces accountability. Even “showing” becomes “looking”: to present something, you have to actually see it, not just gesture at it.
The last clause jolts the sequence with a homely image: “by pumping that we draw water into the well.” It’s deliberately counterintuitive - pumping usually draws water out. Amiel flips it to suggest cultivation rather than extraction: the work of expression replenishes the source. In the 19th-century context of introspective, journal-keeping moral psychology (Amiel is famous for his Journal intime), this reads as a defense of disciplined outward practice against the romantic fantasy that depth is purely internal. You don’t find the self by staring harder. You build it by doing.
Quote Details
| Topic | Teaching |
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