Johann Kaspar Lavater quotes
-
“Who makes quick use of the moment is a genius of prudence.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“Him, who incessantly laughs in the street, you may commonly hear grumbling in his closet.”
-- Johann Kaspar LavaterSource : "Aphorisms on Man" by Johann Kaspar Lavater, (c. 1788).
-
“Be certain that he who has betrayed thee once will betray thee again.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“Mistrust the man who finds everything good, the man who finds everything evil and still more the man who is indifferent to everything.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
-
“The jealous are possessed by a mad devil and a dull spirit at the same time.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“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?”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“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.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“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.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
-
“You may depend upon it that he is a good man whose intimate friends are all good, and whose enemies are decidedly bad.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“He who seldom speaks, and with one calm well-timed word can strike dumb the loquacious, is a genius or a hero.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“Let the degree of egotism be the measure of confidence.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
-
“A fop of fashion is the mercer's friend, the tailor's fool, and his own foe.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“Desire is the uneasiness a man finds in himself upon the absence of anything whose present enjoyment carries the idea of delight with it.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“He who prorogues the honesty of today till to-morrow will probably prorogue his to-morrows to eternity.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“All finery is a sign of littleness.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
-
“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.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“The cruelty of the effeminate is more dreadful than that or the hardy.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“The creditor whose appearance gladdens the heart of a debtor may hold his head in sunbeams and his foot on storms.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“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.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
-
“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.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“The conscience is more wise than science.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“Say not you know another entirely till you have divided an inheritance with him.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“Trust him not with your secrets, who, when left alone in your room, turns over your papers.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
-
“Who gives a trifle meanly is meaner than the trifle.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“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.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
-
“The proportion of genius to the vulgar is like one to a million.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“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.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“There is a manner of forgiveness so divine that you are ready to embrace the offender for having called it forth.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“Receive no satisfaction for premeditated impertinence; forget it, forgive it, but keep him inexorably at a distance who offered it.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
-
“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.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“Just so far as we are pleased at finding faults, are we displeased at finding perfection.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“As the interest of man, so his God; as his God, so he.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“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.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
-
“The more any one speaks of himself, the less he likes to hear another talked of.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“The freer you feel yourself in the presence of another, the more free is he.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“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.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“Dread more the blunderer's friendship than the calumniator's enmity.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
-
“Three things characterize man: person, fate, merit--the harmony of these constitutes real grandeur.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“Who despises all that is despicable is made to be impressed with all that is grand.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“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.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“Decided ends are sure signs of a decided character.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
-
“Who begins with severity, in judging of another, ends commonly with falsehood.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“Where consequence ceases, there folly, restlessness and misery begin.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“Who is fatal to others is so to himself.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“Who cuts is easily wounded. The readier you are to offend the sooner you are offended.”
-- Johann Kaspar LavaterSource : "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.
-
-
“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.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“Who has witnessed one free and unconstrained act of yours, has witnessed all.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“Humility with energy is often mistaken for pride.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“You can depend on no man, on no friend, but him who can depend on himself.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
-
“She whom smiles and tears make equally lovely may command all hearts.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“His calumny is not only the greatest benefit a rogue can confer on us, but the only service he will perform for nothing.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“Loudness is impotence.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“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.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
-
“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?”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“He submits himself to be seen through a microscope, who suffers himself to be caught in a fit of passion.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“How few our real wants, and how vast our imaginary ones!”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“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.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
-
“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.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“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.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“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.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“Avoid the eye that discovers with rapidity the bad, and is slow to see the good.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
-
“Who partakes in another's joys is a more humane character than he who partakes in his griefs.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“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.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“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.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“Every man has his devilish minutes.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
-
“The true friend of truth and good loves them under all forms, but he loves them most under the most simple form.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“Not every one who has the gift of speech understands the value of silence.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“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.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“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.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
-
“He who is passionate and hasty is generally honest. It is your cool, dissembling hypocrite of whom you should beware.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“In the society of ladies, want of sense is not so unpardonable as want of manners.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“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.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“True love, like the eye, can bear no flaw.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
-
“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.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“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.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“Softness of smile indicates softness of character.”
-- Johann Kaspar LavaterSource : "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.
-
“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.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
-
“Sensibility is the power of woman.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“Wisdom is the repose of the mind.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“He whom common, gross, or stale objects allure, and when obtained, content, is a vulgar being, incapable of greatness in thought or action.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
-
“Vanity and rudeness are seldom seen together.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“She neglects her heart who too closely studies her glass.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“Have I done aught of value to my fellow-men? Then have I done much for myself.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“The man who loves with his whole heart truth will love still more he who suffers for truth.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
-
“Women are proverbially credulous.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“Each particle of matter is an immensity, each leaf a world, each insect an inexplicable compendium.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“Superstition always inspires littleness, religion grandeur of mind; the superstitious raises beings inferior to himself to deities.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“Habit is altogether too arbitrary a master for me to submit to.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
-
“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.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“There are no friends more inseparable than pride and hardness of heart, humility and love, falsehood and impudence.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“The policy of adapting one's self to circumstances makes all ways smooth.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“He who seeks to imbitter innocent pleasure has a cancer in his heart.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
-
“The affectation of sanctity is a blotch on the face of piety.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“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?”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“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.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
“The mingled incentives which lead to action are often too subtle and lie too deep for us to analyze.”
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
You may also like:
-
Auguste Comte
Philosopher -
Cesare Lombroso
Physician -
Edmund Burke
Statesman -
Francis Galton
Polymath -
Franz Joseph Gall
Physiologist -
Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi
Philosopher -
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
Writer -
Henry Fuseli
Painter -
Johann Gottfried Herder
Philosopher -
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Writer -
Marcus Tullius Cicero
Philosopher -
Mary Wollstonecraft
Writer -
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Novelist -
Moses Mendelssohn
Philosopher -
Thomas Paine
Author -
Umberto Eco
Essayist -
William Blake
Poet -
William Godwin
Journalist -
William Shakespeare
Poet
