Top 200 Johann Kaspar Lavater Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “Be not the fourth friend of him who had three before and lost them.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

53. “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.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

54. “Wishes run over in loquacious impotence, will presses on with laconic energy.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

55. “Borrowed wit is the poorest wit.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

57. “True love, like the eye, can bear no flaw.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

58. “True genius repeats itself forever, and never repeats itself – one ever varied sense beams novelty and unity on all.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

60. “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.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

61. “The greatest of characters, no doubt, would be he, who, free of all trifling accidental helps, could see objects through one grand immutable medium, always at hand, and proof against illusion and time, reflecting every object in its true shape and colour through all the fluctuation of things.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

62. “Sensibility is the power of woman.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

63. “Existence is self-enjoyment, by means of some object distinct from ourselves.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

65. “A single spark of occasion discharges the child of passions into a thousand crackers of desire.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

67. “Calmness of will is a sign of grandeur.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

68. “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

69. “Half talent is no talent.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

70. “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

71. “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

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

73. “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

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

75. “A sneer is often the sign of heartless malignity.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

76. “Softness of smile indicates softness of character.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

77. “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.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

78. “He who, silent, loves to be with us – he who loves us in our silence – has touched one of the keys that ravish hearts.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

79. “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.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

81. “A fop of fashion is the mercer’s friend, the tailor’s fool, and his own foe.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

82. “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

83. “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

84. “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.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

85. “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

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

93. “He surely is most in need of another’s patience, who has none of his own.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

94. “A great passion has no partner.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

95. “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

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

98. “Dread more the blunderer’s friendship than the calumniator’s enmity.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

99. “The smiles that encourage severity of judgment hide malice and insincerity.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

100. “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.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater