Top 200 Johann Kaspar Lavater Quotes (2024 Update)
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151. “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

152. “Who trades in contradictions will not be contradicted.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

154. “The discovery of truth, by slow progressive meditation, is wisdom. – Intuition of truth, not preceded by perceptible meditation, is genius.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

155. “Where consequence ceases, there folly, restlessness and misery begin.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

159. “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

160. “The public seldom forgive twice.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

162. “Who values gold above all, considers all else as trifling.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

164. “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

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

166. “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.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

168. “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.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

170. “He who can conceal his joys, is greater than he who can hide his griefs.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

171. “The immoderate cannot laugh moderately.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

173. “Who is respectable when thinking himself alone and free from observation will be so before the eye of all the world.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

174. “Who gives a trifle meanly is meaner than the trifle.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

175. “Trust him with none of thy individualities who is, or pretends to be, two things at once.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

177. “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

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

179. “Thinkers are as scarce as gold.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

180. “Take here the grand secret; if not of pleasing all, yet of displeasing none, and court mediocrity, avoid originality, and sacrifice to fashion.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

181. “Thousands are hated, while none are loved without a real cause.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

182. “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

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

184. “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.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

185. “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

186. “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

187. “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

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

189. “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

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

193. “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.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

195. “Good-humor is always a success.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

196. “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

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

198. “Weaknesses, so called, are nothing more nor less than vice in disguise!”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

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

— Johann Kaspar Lavater