Johann Kaspar Lavater Quotes:

Who makes quick use of the moment is a genius of prudence.

Topics: Opportunity, Genius, Use, Use It Or Lose It

Him, who incessantly laughs in the street, you may commonly hear grumbling in his closet.

source: - "Aphorisms on Man" by Johann Kaspar Lavater, (c. 1788).

Topics: Laughter, Laughing, Grumbling, Incessantly

Be certain that he who has betrayed thee once will betray thee again.

Topics: Betrayal, Betrayed, Thee

Mistrust the man who finds everything good, the man who finds everything evil and still more the man who is indifferent to everything.

Topics: Inspirational, Men, Evil

The jealous are possessed by a mad devil and a dull spirit at the same time.

Topics: Jealousy, Time, Mad, Jealous And Envy, Jealousy And Envy

Don't speak evil of someone if you don't know for certain, and if you do know ask yourself, why am I telling it?

Topics: Evil, Gossip, Speak

What do I owe to my times, to my country, to my neighbors, to my friends? Such are the questions which a virtuous man ought often to ask himself.

Topics: Country, Men, Neighbor, World Citizen

I am prejudiced in favor of him who, without impudence, can ask boldly. He has faith in humanity, and faith in himself. No one who is not accustomed to giving grandly can ask nobly and with boldness.

Topics: Giving, Humanity, Favors, Impudence, Faith In Humanity

You may depend upon it that he is a good man whose intimate friends are all good, and whose enemies are decidedly bad.

Topics: Men, Good Man, Enemy, Intimate Friends

He who seldom speaks, and with one calm well-timed word can strike dumb the loquacious, is a genius or a hero.

Topics: Time, Stupid, Hero

The public seldom forgive twice.

Topics: Forgiving, Society

Let the degree of egotism be the measure of confidence.

Topics: Degrees, Egotism

A fop of fashion is the mercer's friend, the tailor's fool, and his own foe.

Topics: Fashion, Tailors, Fool

Desire is the uneasiness a man finds in himself upon the absence of anything whose present enjoyment carries the idea of delight with it.

Topics: Men, Ideas, Desire, Uneasiness

He who prorogues the honesty of today till to-morrow will probably prorogue his to-morrows to eternity.

Topics: Honesty, Delay, Today

All finery is a sign of littleness.

Nothing is so pregnant as cruelty; so multifarious, so rapid, so ever teeming a mother is unknown to the animal kingdom; each of her experiments provokes another and refines upon the last; though always progressive, yet always remote from the end.

Topics: Mother, Animal, Cuckoos, Animal Kingdom

The cruelty of the effeminate is more dreadful than that or the hardy.

Topics: Cruelty, Hardy

The creditor whose appearance gladdens the heart of a debtor may hold his head in sunbeams and his foot on storms.

Topics: Heart, Feet, Storm, Creditors

Those who speak always and those who never speak are equally unfit for friendship. A food proportion of the talent of listening and speaking is the base of social virtues.

Topics: Listening, Talent, Speak

Beware of biting jests; the more truth they carry with them, the greater wounds they give, the greater smarts they cause, and the greater scars they leave behind them.

Topics: Smart, Giving, Biting

The conscience is more wise than science.

Topics: Wise, Conscience

Say not you know another entirely till you have divided an inheritance with him.

Topics: Inheritance

Trust him not with your secrets, who, when left alone in your room, turns over your papers.

Topics: Trust, Secret, Rooms

Good-humor is always a success.

Topics: Good Humor

Who gives a trifle meanly is meaner than the trifle.

Topics: Giving, Trifles

Borrowed wit is the poorest wit.

Topics: Imitation, Wit

A gift--its kind, its value and appearance; the silence or the pomp that attends it; the style in which it reaches you--may decide the dignity or vulgarity of the giver.

Topics: Silence, Style, May

The proportion of genius to the vulgar is like one to a million.

Topics: Genius, Proportion, Vulgar

It is possible that a wise and good man may be prevailed on to game; but it is impossible that a professed gamester should be a wise and good man.

Topics: Wise, Men, Gambling

There is a manner of forgiveness so divine that you are ready to embrace the offender for having called it forth.

Topics: Forgiveness, Embrace, Divine, Offenders

Receive no satisfaction for premeditated impertinence; forget it, forgive it, but keep him inexorably at a distance who offered it.

Topics: Forgiveness, Distance, Forgiving, Impertinence

Evasions are the common shelter of the hard-hearted, the false and impotent when called upon to assist; the really great alone plan instantaneous help, even when their looks or words presage difficulties.

Topics: Looks, Shelter, Helping, Instantaneous

Just so far as we are pleased at finding faults, are we displeased at finding perfection.

Topics: Envy, Perfection, Faults

As the interest of man, so his God; as his God, so he.

Topics: Men, Interest

Whatever obscurities may involve religious tenets, humility and love constitute the essence of true religion; the humble is formed to adore, the loving to associate with eternal love.

Topics: Religious, Humble, Humility

The more any one speaks of himself, the less he likes to hear another talked of.

Topics: Likes, Speak, Conceit

The freer you feel yourself in the presence of another, the more free is he.

Topics: Feels

He, who boldly interposes between a merciless censor and his prey, is a man of vigor: and he who, mildly wise, without wounding, convinces him of his error, commands our veneration.

Topics: Wise, Men, Errors

Dread more the blunderer's friendship than the calumniator's enmity.

Topics: Friendship, Enmity, Dread

Three things characterize man: person, fate, merit--the harmony of these constitutes real grandeur.

Topics: Real, Fate, Men

Who despises all that is despicable is made to be impressed with all that is grand.

Topics: Made, Despise

Man is forever the same; the same under every form, in all situations and relations that admit of free and unrestrained exertion. The same regard which you have for yourself, you have for others, for nature, for the invisible ... which you call God.

Topics: Men, Forever, Invisible

Decided ends are sure signs of a decided character.

Topics: Character, Ends

Who begins with severity, in judging of another, ends commonly with falsehood.

Topics: Judging, Ends, Falsehood

Where consequence ceases, there folly, restlessness and misery begin.

Topics: Misery, Folly, Consequence

Who is fatal to others is so to himself.

Who cuts is easily wounded. The readier you are to offend the sooner you are offended.

source: - "Aphorisms on man. Translated from the original manuscript of the Rev. John Caspar Lavater, citizen of Zuric. ; [One line from Juvenal]" by Johann Kaspar Lavater, 1790.

Topics: Cutting, Wounded, Offended

The quicker, the louder, the applause with which another tries to gain you over to his purpose--the bitterer his censure if he miss his aim.

Topics: Missing, Trying, Purpose

Who has witnessed one free and unconstrained act of yours, has witnessed all.

Humility with energy is often mistaken for pride.

Topics: Humility, Pride, Energy

You can depend on no man, on no friend, but him who can depend on himself.

Topics: Men, No Friends, Dependence, Dependence On Others

She whom smiles and tears make equally lovely may command all hearts.

Topics: Heart, Lovely, Tears, Smile And Tears

His calumny is not only the greatest benefit a rogue can confer on us, but the only service he will perform for nothing.

Topics: Benefits, Rogues, Calumny, Calumny Is

Loudness is impotence.

Topics: Impotence

He who comes from the kitchen, smells of its smoke; and he who adheres to a sect, has something of its cant; the college air pursues the student; and dry inhumanity him who herds with literary pedants.

Topics: College, Air, Smell

The enemy of art is the enemy of nature; art is nothing but the highest sagacity and exertions of human nature; and what nature will he honor who honors not the human?

Topics: Art, Honor, Enemy, Sagacity

He submits himself to be seen through a microscope, who suffers himself to be caught in a fit of passion.

Topics: Anger, Passion, Suffering

How few our real wants, and how vast our imaginary ones!

Topics: Real, Want, Imaginary

Thinkers are scarce as gold; but he whose thoughts embrace all his subject, and who pursues it uninterruptedly and fearless of consequences, is a diamond of enormous size.

Topics: Fearless, Gold, Size

If you mean to know yourself, interline such of these aphorisms as affect you agreeably in reading, and set a mark to such as left a sense of uneasiness with you; and then show your copy to whom you please.

Topics: Reading, Mean, Aphorism

Venerate four characters: the sanguine who has checked volatility and the rage for pleasure; the choleric who has subdued passion and pride; the phlegmatic emerged from indolence; and the melancholy who has dismissed avarice, suspicion and asperity.

Topics: Passion, Character, Pride, Volatility, Sanguine

Happy the heart to whom God has given enough strength and courage to suffer for Him, to find happiness in simplicity and the happiness of others.

Topics: Heart, Simplicity, Suffering

Avoid the eye that discovers with rapidity the bad, and is slow to see the good.

Topics: Eye

Who partakes in another's joys is a more humane character than he who partakes in his griefs.

Topics: Grief, Character, Joy

Kiss the hand of him who can renounce what he has publicly taught, when convicted of his error; and who, with heartfelt joy, embraces the truth, though with the sacrifice of favorite opinions.

Topics: Happiness, Art, Truth

Close thine ear against him that shall open his mouth secretly against another. If thou receivest not his words, they fly back and wound the reporter. If thou dost receive them, they fly forward and wound the receiver.

Topics: Ears, Mouths, Slander

Every man has his devilish minutes.

Topics: Men, Sin, Minutes, Devilish

The true friend of truth and good loves them under all forms, but he loves them most under the most simple form.

Topics: True Friend, Good Love, Simple

Not every one who has the gift of speech understands the value of silence.

Topics: Silence, Speech, Values

He knows not how to speak who cannot be silent; still less how to act with vigor and decision. Who hastens to the end is silent; loudness is impotence.

Topics: Silence, Decision, Vigor

Who, in the midst of just provocation to anger, instantly finds the fit word which settles all around him in silence is more than wise or just; he is, were he a beggar, of more than royal blood, he is of celestial descent.

Topics: Wise, Blood, Silence, Royal Blood

He who is passionate and hasty is generally honest. It is your cool, dissembling hypocrite of whom you should beware.

Topics: Passion, Hypocrite, Honest, Hasty

In the society of ladies, want of sense is not so unpardonable as want of manners.

Topics: Want, Manners

As a man's salutations, so is the total of his character; in nothing do we lay ourselves so open as in our manner of meeting and salutation.

Topics: Character, Men, Manners, Salutations

True love, like the eye, can bear no flaw.

Topics: Love, Eye, Bears

An entirely honest man, in the severe sense of the word, exists no more than an entirely dishonest knave; the best and the worst are only approximations to those qualities. Who are those that never contradict themselves? yet honesty never contradicts itself. Who are they that always contradict themselves? yet knavery is mere self-contradiction. Thus the knowledge of man determines not the things themselves, but their proportions, the quantum of congruities and incongruities.

Topics: Honesty, Men, Self, Incongruity, Approximation

A beautiful smile is to the female countenance what the sunbeam is to the landscape; it embellishes an inferior face and redeems an ugly one.

Topics: Beautiful, Female, Ugly, Beautiful Smile

Softness of smile indicates softness of character.

source: - "Aphorisms on man. Translated from the original manuscript of the Rev. John Caspar Lavater, citizen of Zuric" by Johann Kaspar Lavater, New-York: re-printed by T. and J. Swords, for Berry and Rogers, Hanover-Square, 1790.

Topics: Character, Softness

What is the elevation of the soul? A prompt, delicate, certain feeling for all that is beautiful, all that is grand; a quick resolution to do the greatest good by the smallest means; a great benevolence joined to a great strength and great humility.

Topics: Beautiful, Mean, Humility, Elevation

Words are the wings of actions.

Topics: Wings, Action

Sensibility is the power of woman.

Topics: Women, Sensibility

Wisdom is the repose of the mind.

Topics: Wisdom, Mind

He whom common, gross, or stale objects allure, and when obtained, content, is a vulgar being, incapable of greatness in thought or action.

Topics: Greatness, Action, Common, Allure

Vanity and rudeness are seldom seen together.

Topics: Vanity, Together, Rudeness

She neglects her heart who too closely studies her glass.

Topics: Heart, Vanity, Glasses

Have I done aught of value to my fellow-men? Then have I done much for myself.

Topics: Men, Done, Fellow Man

The man who loves with his whole heart truth will love still more he who suffers for truth.

Topics: Truth, Heart, Men

Women are proverbially credulous.

Topics: Trust

Each particle of matter is an immensity, each leaf a world, each insect an inexplicable compendium.

Topics: World, Matter, Inexplicable

Superstition always inspires littleness, religion grandeur of mind; the superstitious raises beings inferior to himself to deities.

Topics: Inspire, Mind, Superstitions

Habit is altogether too arbitrary a master for me to submit to.

Topics: Arbitrary, Habit, Masters

He who, in questions of right, virtue, or duty, sets himself above all ridicule, is truly great, and shall laugh in the end with truer mirth than ever he was laughed at.

Topics: Greatness, Laughing, Mirth

There are no friends more inseparable than pride and hardness of heart, humility and love, falsehood and impudence.

Topics: Heart, Humility, Pride, Impudence, Hardness Of Heart

The policy of adapting one's self to circumstances makes all ways smooth.

Topics: Self, Way, Smooth

He who seeks to imbitter innocent pleasure has a cancer in his heart.

Topics: Cancer, Heart, Innocent

The affectation of sanctity is a blotch on the face of piety.

Topics: Faces, Sanctity, Piety

What knowledge is there of which man is capable that is not founded on the exterior,--the relation that exists between visible and invisible, the perceptible and the imperceptible?

Topics: Men, Invisible, Relation, Physiognomy

True philosophy is that which renders us to ourselves, and all others who surround us, better, and at the same time more content, more patient, more calm and more ready for all decent and pure enjoyment.

Topics: Philosophy, Calm, Patient

The mingled incentives which lead to action are often too subtle and lie too deep for us to analyze.

Topics: Lying, Incentives, Action, Too Deep

Modesty is silent when it would be improper to speak; the humble, without being called upon, never recollects to say anything of himself.

Topics: Humble, Say Anything, Would Be

Half talent is no talent.

Topics: Mediocrity, Half, Talent

Truth, wisdom, love, seek reasons; malice only seeks causes.

Topics: Causes, Reason, Love Wisdom

Malice is poisoned by her own venom.

Topics: Venom, Malice

Man without religion is a diseased creature, who would persuade himself he is well and needs not a physician; but woman without religion is raging and monstrous.

Topics: Men, Religion, Physicians, Monstrous

He who goes round about in his requests wants commonly more than he chooses to appear to want.

Topics: Want, Request

Do not believe that a book is good, if in reading it thou dost not become more contented with thy existence, if it does not rouse up in thee most generous feelings.

Topics: Believe, Book, Reading

Copiousness and simplicity, variety and unity, constitute real greatness of character.

Topics: Real, Character, Greatness

It is one of my favorite thoughts that God manifests Himself to men in all the wise, good, humble, generous, great, and magnanimous men.

Topics: God, Wise, Humble, Magnanimous

Be neither too early in the fashion, nor too long out of it; nor at any time in the extremes of it.

Topics: Fashion, Long, Extremes

Dress is an index of your contents.

Topics: Dresses

As you treat your body, so your house, your domestics, your enemies, your friends. Dress is a table of your contents.

Topics: House, Enemy, Dresses

Who forces himself on others is to himself a load. Impetuous curiosity is empty and inconstant. Prying intrusion may be suspected of whatever is little.

Topics: Curiosity, May, Littles, Impetuous

Avoid him who from mere curiosity asks three questions running about a thing that cannot interest Him.

Topics: Running, Curiosity, Three

Joy and grief decide character. What exalts prosperity? what imbitters grief? what leaves us indifferent? what interests us? As the interest of man, so his God,--as his God, so he.

Topics: Grief, Character, Men, Joy And Grief

Certain trifling flaws sit as disgracefully on a character of elegance as a ragged button on a court dress.

Topics: Character, Buttons, Dresses, Trifling, Ragged

Avoid connecting yourself with characters whose good and bad sides are unmixed and have not fermented together; they resemble vials of vinegar and oil; or palletts set with colors; they are either excellent at home and insufferable abroad, or intolerable within doors and excellent in public; they are unfit for friendship, merely because their stamina, their ingredients of character are too single, too much apart; let them be finely ground up with each other, and they are incomparable.

Topics: Home, Character, Doors, Insufferable, Incomparable

No communication or gift can exhaust genius or impoverish charity.

Topics: Communication, Genius, Charity, No Communication

And still, laughter is akin to weeping.

Topics: Laughter, Weeping, Stills

Be not the fourth friend of him who had three before and lost them.

Topics: Friendship, Three, Lost

When you doubt between words, use the plainest, the commonest, the most idiomatic. Eschew fine words as you would rouge; love simple ones as you would the native roses on your cheek.

Topics: Love, Simple, Rose, Fine Words, Rouge

Three days of uninterrupted company in a vehicle will make you better acquainted with another, than one hour's conversation with him every day for three years.

Topics: Years, Three, Hours, One Hour

He who purposely cheats his friend would cheat his God.

Topics: Friendship, Cheat, Cheating Men

All belief that does not make us more happy, more free, more loving, more active, more calm, is, I fear, a mistaken and superstitious belief.

Topics: Doe, Belief, Calm

He can feel no little wants who is in pursuit of grandeur.

Topics: Want, Littles, Pursuit, Grandeur

He who has no taste for order, will be often wrong in his judgment, and seldom considerate or conscientious in his actions.

Topics: Order, Taste, Action, Considerate

The prudent see only the difficulties, the bold only the advantages, of a great enterprise; the hero sees both; diminishes the former and makes the latter preponderate, and so conquers.

Topics: Mistake, Hero, Prudent

Let none turn over books, or roam the stars in quest of God, who sees him not in man.

Topics: God, Stars, Book

Have you ever seen a pedant with a warm heart?

Topics: War, Heart, Pedants, Warm Heart

He who sedulously attends, pointedly asks, calmly speaks, coolly answers and ceases when he has no more to say is in possession of some of the best requisites of man

Topics: Men, People, Answers, Dealing With People

If you see one cold and vehement at the same time, set him down for a fanatic.

Topics: Time, Vehement, Cold, Cold Heart, Fanaticism

Where there is much pretension, much has been borrowed; nature never pretends.

Topics: Nature, Pretension

It is a poor wit who lives by borrowing the words, decisions, mien, inventions and actions of others.

Topics: Decision, Action, Poor

All affectation is the vain and ridiculous attempt of poverty to appear rich

Topics: Poverty, Ridiculous, Rich

Who in the same given time can produce more than others has vigor; who can produce more and better, has talents; who can produce what none else can, has genius.

Topics: Vigor, Genius, Talent

The worst of faces still is human.

Topics: Love, Faces, Worst

The manner of giving shows the character of the giver, more than the gift itself.

Topics: Character, Giving, Giver

Injustice arises either from precipitation, or indolence, or from a mixture of both. - The rapid and slow are seldom just; the unjust wait either not at all, or wait too long.

Topics: Long, Waiting, Mixtures

He who reforms himself has done more towards reforming the public than a crowd or noisy, impotent patriots.

Topics: Reform, Done, Crowds

Fools learn nothing from wise men, but wise men learn much from fools.

Topics: Inspirational, Wise, Men

To realize that you were mistaken, is just the acknowledgement , that you are wiser today than you were yesterday.

Topics: Yesterday, Today, Realizing, Acknowledgement

He who, when called upon to speak a disagreeable truth, tells it boldly and has done is both bolder and milder than he who nibbles in a low voice and never ceases nibbling.

Topics: Voice, Nibbling, Done

True worth is as inevitably discovered by the facial expression, as its opposite is sure to be clearly represented there. The human face is nature's tablet, the truth is certainly written thereon.

Topics: Expression, Opposites, Tablets, Facial Expression, True Worth

Action, looks, words, steps, form the alphabet by which you may spell character.

Topics: Character, Looks, May, Character Building, Personality Flaws

He who can conceal his joys, is greater than he who can hide his griefs

Topics: Grief, Joy

To know yourself you have only to set down a true statement of those that ever loved or hated you.

Topics: Love, Know Yourself, Hated

Neatness begets order; but from order to taste there is the same difference as from taste to genius, or from love to friendship.

Topics: Love, Order, Differences, Neatness

Where pride begins, love ceases.

Topics: Pride

He whose pride oppresses the humble may perhaps be humbled, but will never be humble.

Topics: Humble, Pride, May

Conscience is the sentinel of virtue.

Topics: Virtue, Conscience, Sentinels

Airs of importance are the credentials of impotence.

Topics: Pride, Air, Credentials

There are many kinds of smiles, each having a distinct character. Some announce goodness and sweetness, others betray sarcasm, bitterness and pride; some soften the countenance by their languishing tenderness, others brighten by their spiritual vivacity.

Topics: Smile, Spiritual, Character, Countenance, Vivacity

The procrastinator is not only indolent and weak, but commonly, false, too; most of the weak are false.

Topics: Procrastination, Weak, Procrastinator

He is incapable of a truly good action who finds not a pleasure in contemplating the good actions of others.

Topics: Appreciation, Action, Pleasure

If you wish to appear agreeable in society, you must consent to be taught many things which you already know.

Topics: Inspirational, Wish, Taught

You may tell a man thou art a fiend, but not your nose wants blowing; to him alone who can bear a thing of that kind, you may tell all.

Topics: Art, Men, Bears, Candor

He, who cannot forgive a trespass of malice to his enemy, has never yet tasted the most sublime enjoyment of love.

Topics: Sublime, Forgiving, Enemy, Trespassing

The countenance is more eloquent than the tongue.

Topics: Tongue, Faces, Eloquent

There are three classes of men; the retrograde, the stationary and the progressive.

Topics: Ignorance, Men, Class, Retrograde, Stationary

The discovery of truth, by slow progressive meditation, is wisdom. - Intuition of truth, not preceded by perceptible meditation, is genius.

source: - "Aphorisms on man. Translated from the original manuscript of the Rev. John Caspar Lavater, citizen of Zuric. ; [One line from Juvenal]" by Johann Kaspar Lavater, 1790.

Topics: Discovery, Meditation, Intuition

He also has energy who cannot be deprived of it.

Topics: Energy, Deprived

Who is open without levity; generous without waste; secret without craft; humble without meanness; bold without insolence; cautious without anxiety; regular, yet not formal; mild, yet not timid; firm, yet not tyrannical - is made to pass the ordeal of honour, friendship, virtue.

source: - "Aphorisms on man. Translated from the original manuscript of the Rev. John Caspar Lavater, citizen of Zuric. ; [One line from Juvenal]" by Johann Kaspar Lavater, 1790.

Topics: Humble, Anxiety, Secret, Levity

Thousands are hated, while none are loved without a real cause

Topics: Real, Hatred, Causes

The loss of taste for what is right is loss of all right taste.

source: - "Aphorisms on man. Translated from the original manuscript of the Rev. John Caspar Lavater, citizen of Zuric. ; [One line from Juvenal]" by Johann Kaspar Lavater, 1790.

Topics: Loss, Taste

Whenever a man undergoes a considerable change, in consequence of being observed by others, whenever he assumes another gait, another language, than what he had before he thought himself observed, be advised to guard yourself against him.

source: - "Aphorisms on man. Translated from the original manuscript of the Rev. John Caspar Lavater, citizen of Zuric. ; [One line from Juvenal]" by Johann Kaspar Lavater, 1790.

Topics: Men, Assuming, Language, Gait

A sneer is often the sign of heartless malignity.

Topics: Heartless, Sneer

Know in the first place, that mankind agree in essence, as they do in limbs and senses.

Topics: Essence, Firsts, Limbs

Defeat serves to enlighten us.

Topics: Enlightening, Defeat

Before thou callest a man hero or genius, investigate whether his exertion has features of indelibility; for all that is celestial, all genius, is the offspring of immortality.

source: - "Aphorisms on man. Translated from the original manuscript of the Rev. John Caspar Lavater, citizen of Zuric. ; [One line from Juvenal]" by Johann Kaspar Lavater, 1790.

Topics: Hero, Men, Genius, Offspring

Vociferation and calmness of character seldom meet in the same person.

source: - "Aphorisms on man. Translated from the original manuscript of the Rev. John Caspar Lavater, citizen of Zuric. ; [One line from Juvenal]" by Johann Kaspar Lavater, 1790.

Topics: Character, Calmness, Persons

The acquisition of will, for one thing exclusively, presupposes entire acquaintance with many others.

Topics: Acquisition, Acquaintance, One Thing

God protects those he loves from worthless reading.

Topics: Reading, Protect, Worthless

Learn the value of a man's words and expressions, and you know him. Each man has a measure of his own for everything; this he offers you inadvertently in his words. He who has a superlative for everything wants a measure for the great or small.

Topics: Men, Expression, Want, Superlatives

He who attempts to make others believe in means which he himself despises is a puffer; he who makes use of more means than he knows to be necessary is a quack; and he who ascribes to those means a greater efficacy than his own experience warrants is an impostor.

Topics: Believe, Mean, Deceit, Quacks

Indiscretion, rashness, falsehood, levity, and malice, produce each other.

source: - "Aphorisms on man. Translated from the original manuscript of the Rev. John Caspar Lavater, citizen of Zuric. ; [One line from Juvenal]" by Johann Kaspar Lavater, 1790.

Topics: Levity, Produce, Malice, Rashness

Intuition is the clear conception of the whole at once.

Topics: Intuition, Instinct, Hunches, Conception, Instinct Intuition

Faces are as legible as books, only with these circumstances to recommend them to our perusal, that they are read in much less time, and are much less likely to deceive us.

Topics: Book, Faces, Deceiving

Calmness of will is a sign of grandeur.

Topics: Calmness, Grandeur

Who recollects distinctly his past adventures, knows his destiny to come.

Topics: Adventure, Past, Destiny

A great passion has no partner.

source: - "Aphorisms on man. Translated from the original manuscript of the Rev. John Caspar Lavater, citizen of Zuric. ; [One line from Juvenal]" by Johann Kaspar Lavater, 1790.

Topics: Passion, Partners, Great Passion

Strange that cowards cannot see that their greatest safety lies in dauntless courage.

Topics: Lying, Safety, Coward, Dauntless

Many very intelligent agreeable persons have warts on the forehead, not brown, nor very large, between the eyebrows, which have nothing in them offensive or disgusting. - But a large brown wart on the upper lip, especially when it is bristly, will be found in no person who is not defective in something essential, or at least remarkable for some conspicuous failing.

Topics: Intelligent, Eyebrows, Lips, Defective, Warts

As man's love or hatred, so he. Love and hatred exist only personified.

source: - "Aphorisms on man. Translated from the original manuscript of the Rev. John Caspar Lavater, citizen of Zuric. ; [One line from Juvenal]" by Johann Kaspar Lavater, 1790.

Topics: Men, Hatred, Hatred And Love

Who knows whence he comes, where he is, and whither he tends, he, and he alone, is wise.

source: - "Aphorisms on man. Translated from the original manuscript of the Rev. John Caspar Lavater, citizen of Zuric. ; [One line from Juvenal]" by Johann Kaspar Lavater, 1790.

Topics: Wise, Wisdom, Knows

Neither refinement nor delicacy is indispensable to produce elegance.

Topics: Delicacy, Elegance, Produce, Refinement

Who trades in contradictions will not be contradicted.

source: - "Aphorisms on man. Translated from the original manuscript of the Rev. John Caspar Lavater, citizen of Zuric. ; [One line from Juvenal]" by Johann Kaspar Lavater, 1790.

Topics: Contradiction, Trade

Trust him little who praise all, him less who censures all and him least who is indifferent about all.

Topics: Trust, Littles, Indifference

The humblest star twinkles most in the darkest night.

Topics: Stars, Night

Who has a daring eye tell downright truths and downright lies.

Topics: Lying, Eye, Deceit

The more uniform a man's voice, step, manner of conversation, handwriting--the more quiet, uniform, settled, his actions, his character.

Topics: Character, Men, Voice

Too much gravity argues a shallow mind.

Topics: Mind, Too Much, Arguing

The horse-laugh indicates brutality of character.

source: - "Aphorisms on man. Translated from the original manuscript of the Rev. John Caspar Lavater, citizen of Zuric. ; [One line from Juvenal]" by Johann Kaspar Lavater, 1790.

Topics: Horse, Laughter, Character

He who always prefaces his tale with laughter, is poised between impertinence and folly.

Topics: Laughter, Tales, Folly, Impertinence

The most stormy ebullitions of passion, from blasphemy to murder, are less terrific than one single act of cool villainy.

source: - "Aphorisms on man. Translated from the original manuscript of the Rev. John Caspar Lavater, citizen of Zuric. ; [One line from Juvenal]" by Johann Kaspar Lavater, 1790.

Topics: Passion, Murder, Blasphemy, Stormy, Villainy

True genius repeats itself forever, and never repeats itself--one ever varied sense beams novelty and unity on all.

Topics: Forever, Unity, Genius, True Genius

Who values gold above all, considers all else as trifling.

source: - "Aphorisms on man. Translated from the original manuscript of the Rev. John Caspar Lavater, citizen of Zuric. ; [One line from Juvenal]" by Johann Kaspar Lavater, 1790.

Topics: Gold, Trifling, Values

The obstinacy of the indolent and weak is less conquerable than that of the fiery and bold.

source: - "Aphorisms on man. Translated from the original manuscript of the Rev. John Caspar Lavater, citizen of Zuric. ; [One line from Juvenal]" by Johann Kaspar Lavater, 1790.

Topics: Weak, Obstinacy, Fiery

The more unharmonious and inconsistent your objects of desire, the more inconsequent, inconstant, unquiet, the more ignoble, idiotical, and criminal yourself.

Topics: Desire, Criminals, Ignoble, Inconsistent, Objects Of Desire

Stubbornness is the strength of the weak.

Topics: Weak, Stubbornness

The great rule of moral conduct is next to God, respect time.

Topics: Time, Next, Morality