Top 60 Gotthold Ephraim Lessing Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “The search for truth is more precious than its possession.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

2. “To look forward to pleasure is also a pleasure.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

3. “If some things don’t make you lose your sense of reason, then you have none to lose.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

4. “Pure truth is for God alone.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

5. “Nature intended that woman should be her masterpiece.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

6. “The more we see the more we must be able to imagine, and the more we imagine, the more we must think we see.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

7. “A heretic is a man who sees with his own eyes.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

8. “Yesterday I lived, today I suffer, tomorrow I die; but I still think fondly, today and tomorrow, of yesterday.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

9. “Did the Almighty, holding in his right hand truth, and in his left hand search after truth, deign to proffer me the one I might prefer, in all humility, but without hesitation, I should request search after truth.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

10. “Nothing under the sun is ever accidental.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

11. “Let us be lazy in everything, except in loving and drinking, except in being lazy.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

12. “A single grateful thought toward heaven is the most perfect prayer.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

13. “For me the greatest beauty always lies in the greatest clarity.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

14. “It is not the truth that a man possesses, or believes that he possesses, but the earnest effort which he puts forward to reach the truth, which constitutes the worth of a man.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

15. “For the will and not the gift makes the giver.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

16. “With a clear sky, a bright sun, and a gentle breeze, you will have friends in plenty; but let fortune frown, and the firmament be overcast, and then your friends will prove like the strings of the lute, of which you will tighten ten before you find one that will bear the stretch and keep the pitch.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

17. “When the heart dares to speak, it needs no preparation.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

18. “What education is to the individual, revelation is to the whole human race.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

19. “Let the devil catch you but by a single hair, and you are his forever.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

20. “The real beggar is indeed the true and only king.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

21. “The true vagrant is the only king above all comparison.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

22. “Suspicion follows close on mistrust.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

23. “It is medicine, not poison, I offer you.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

24. “Who cannot resolve upon a moment’s notice To live his own life, he forever lives A slave to others.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

25. “The most deadly fruit is borne by the hatred which one grafts on an extinguished friendship.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

26. “Resist as much as thou wilt; heaven’s ways are heaven’s ways.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

27. “It’s easier to swoon in pious dreams Than do good actions.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

28. “There are things which must cause you to lose your reason or you have none to lose.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

29. “Lies in meinen Augen, was ich dir nicht alles sagen kann.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

30. “They make glorious shipwreck who are lost in seeking worlds.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

31. “Ein einziger dankbarer Gedanke gen Himmel ist das vollkommenste Gebet. One single grateful thought raised to heaven is the most perfect prayer.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

32. “The superstition in which we grew up, Though we may recognize it, does not lose Its power over us.-Not all are free Who make mock of their chains.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

33. “The end-purpose of all art is enjoyment!”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

34. “Pleasures, riches, honor and joy are sure to have care, disgrace, adversity and affliction in their train. There is no pleasure without pain, no joy without sorrow. O the folly of expecting lasting felicity in a vale of tears, or a paradise in a ruined world.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

35. “What education is to the individual man, revelation is to the human race. Education is revelation coming to the individual man, and revelation is education that has come, and is still coming to the human race.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

36. “We moderns do not believe in demigods, but our smallest hero we expect to feel and act as a demigod.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

37. “He who doesn’t lose his wits over certain things has no wits to lose.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

38. “Ist dieses Land die Welt? Geht hier allein die Sonne auf?”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

39. “Was ist ein Held ohne Menschenliebe!”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

40. “It is not children only that one feeds with fairy tales.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

41. “Would that we could at once paint with the eyes! In the long way from the eye through the arm to the pencil, how much is lost!”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

42. “The superstition in which we were brought up never loses its power over us, even after we understand it.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

43. “The gift of prayer is not always at our command.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

44. “Joy makes us giddy, dizzy.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

45. “The searcher’s eye Not seldom finds more than he wished to find.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

46. “A blush is the sign which Nature hangs out to show where chastity and honor dwell.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

47. “Borrowing is not much better than begging.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

48. “If the advice of a fool for once happens to be good, it requires a wise man to carry it out.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

49. “It is not I who die, when I die, but my sin and misery.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

50. “Well was it said by a man of sagacity that dancing was a sort of privileged and reputable folly, and that the best way to be convinced of this was to close the ears and judge of it by the eyes alone.”

— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing