Johann Kaspar Lavater quotes:

Send

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.
Neatness begets order; but from order to taste there is the same difference as from taste to genius, or from love to friendship.
Him, who incessantly laughs in the street, you may commonly hear grumbling in his closet.
You are not very good if you are not better than your best friends imagine you to be.
You may depend upon it that he is a good man whose intimate friends are all good, and whose enemies are decidedly bad.
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.
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?
The great rule of moral conduct is next to God, respect time.
Conscience is the sentinel of virtue.
Depend on no man, on no friend but him who can depend on himself. He only who acts conscientiously toward himself, will act so toward others.
The policy of adapting one's self to circumstances makes all ways smooth.
Action, looks, words, steps, form the alphabet by which you may spell character.
He who has no taste for order, will be often wrong in his judgment, and seldom considerate or conscientious in his actions.
Airs of importance are the credentials of impotence.
Every man has his devilish minutes.
The jealous are possessed by a mad devil and a dull spirit at the same time.
Good-humor is always a success.
Too much gravity argues a shallow mind.
He who seldom speaks, and with one calm well-timed word can strike dumb the loquacious, is a genius or a hero.
The generous person is always just, and the just who is always generous may, unannounced, approach the throne of heaven.
A great passion has no partner.
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.
Be certain that he who has betrayed thee once will betray thee again.
If you wish to appear agreeable in society, you must consent to be taught many things which you already know.
A single spark of occasion discharges the child of passions into a thousand crackers of desire.
The creditor whose appearance gladdens the heart of a debtor may hold his head in sunbeams and his foot on storms.
Desire is the uneasiness a man finds in himself upon the absence of anything whose present enjoyment carries the idea of delight with it.
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.
The true friend of truth and good loves them under all forms, but he loves them most under the most simple form.
There are no friends more inseparable than pride and hardness of heart, humility and love, falsehood and impudence.
As man's love or hatred, so he. Love and hatred exist only personified.
Intuition is the clear conception of the whole at once.
Say not you know another entirely till you have divided an inheritance with him.
The worst of all knaves are those who can mimic their former honesty.
Wishes run over in loquacious impotence, will presses on with laconic energy.
Who affects useless singularities has surely a little mind.
Truth, wisdom, love, seek reasons; malice only seeks causes.
He, who cannot forgive a trespass of malice to his enemy, has never yet tasted the most sublime enjoyment of love.
He submits himself to be seen through a microscope, who suffers himself to be caught in a fit of passion.
The wrath that on conviction subsides into mildness, is the wrath of a generous mind.
The miser robs himself.
Mistrust the man who finds everything good, the man who finds everything evil and still more the man who is indifferent to everything.
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.
No communication or gift can exhaust genius or impoverish charity.
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.
The obstinacy of the indolent and weak is less conquerable than that of the fiery and bold.
Obstinacy is the strength of the weak. Firmness founded upon principle, upon the truth and right, order and law, duty and generosity, is the obstinacy of sages.
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 honor, friendship, virtue.
Have you ever seen a pedant with a 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
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?
Where there is much pretension, much has been borrowed; nature never pretends.
The procrastinator is not only indolent and weak, but commonly, false, too; most of the weak are false.
Who makes quick use of the moment is a genius of prudence.
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.
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.
There are three classes of men; the retrograde, the stationary and the progressive.
She whom smiles and tears make equally lovely may command all hearts.
Stubbornness is the strength of the weak.
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.
The mingled incentives which lead to action are often too subtle and lie too deep for us to analyze.
The craftiest trickery are too short and ragged a cloak to cover a bad heart.
Have I done aught of value to my fellow-men? Then have I done much for myself.
If you see one cold and vehement at the same time, set him down for a fanatic.
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.
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.
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.
Mistrust the person who finds everything good, and the person who finds everything evil, and mistrust even more the person who is indifferent to everything.
Trust him not with your secrets, who, when left alone in your room, turns over your papers.
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.
Superstition always inspires littleness, religion grandeur of mind; the superstitious raises beings inferior to himself to deities.
Who begins with severity, in judging of another, ends commonly with falsehood.
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.
Habit is altogether too arbitrary a master for me to submit to.
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.
The public seldom forgive twice.
The proportion of genius to the vulgar is like one to a million.
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.
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.
The less you can enjoy, the poorer, the scantier yourself,--the more you can enjoy, the richer, the more vigorous.
Receive no satisfaction for premeditated impertinence; forget it, forgive it, but keep him inexorably at a distance who offered it.
As your enemies and your friends, so are you
Trust him little who praise all, him less who censures all and him least who is indifferent about all.
The countenance is more eloquent than the tongue.
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.
Be not the fourth friend of him who had three before and lost them.
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.
Just so far as we are pleased at finding faults, are we displeased at finding perfection.
Neither refinement nor delicacy is indispensable to produce elegance.
The humblest star twinkles most in the darkest night.
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.
Decided ends are sure signs of a decided character.
Where consequence ceases, there folly, restlessness and misery begin.
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.
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.
Avoid the eye that discovers with rapidity the bad, and is slow to see the good.
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.
Who despises all that is despicable is made to be impressed with all that is grand.
Dread more the blunderer's friendship than the calumniator's enmity.
Humility with energy is often mistaken for pride.
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?
How few our real wants, and how vast our imaginary ones!
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.
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.
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.
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.
You can depend on no man, on no friend, but him who can depend on himself.
Know in the first place, that mankind agree in essence, as they do in limbs and senses.
The manner of giving shows the character of the giver, more than the gift itself.
Modesty is silent when it would be improper to speak; the humble, without being called upon, never recollects to say anything of himself.
Vociferation and calmness of character seldom meet in the same person.
A sneer is often the sign of heartless malignity.
He also has energy who cannot be deprived of it.
Three things characterize man: person, fate, merit--the harmony of these constitutes real grandeur.
Words are the wings of actions.
Sensibility is the power of woman.
He whom common, gross, or stale objects allure, and when obtained, content, is a vulgar being, incapable of greatness in thought or action.
He who always seeks more light the more he finds, and finds more the more he seeks, is one of the few happy mortals who take and give in every point of time. The tide and ebb of giving and receiving is the sum of human happiness, which he alone enjoys who always wishes to acquire new knowledge, and always finds it.
Half talent is no talent.

Send