Johann Kaspar Lavater Quotes
Neatness begets order; but from order to taste there is the same difference as from taste to genius, or from love to friendship.
You may depend upon it that he is a good man whose intimate friends are all good, and whose enemies are decidedly bad.
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?
Trust him not with your secrets, who, when left alone in your room, turns over your papers.
Him, who incessantly laughs in the street, you may commonly hear grumbling in his closet.
There are no friends more inseparable than pride and hardness of heart, humility and love, falsehood and impudence.
Mistrust the man who finds everything good, the man who finds everything evil and still more the man who is indifferent to everything.
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?
He, who cannot forgive a trespass of malice to his enemy, has never yet tasted the most sublime enjoyment of love.
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.
He who seldom speaks, and with one calm well-timed word can strike dumb the loquacious, is a genius or a hero.
Trust him little who praise all, him less who censures all and him least who is indifferent about all.
If you wish to appear agreeable in society, you must consent to be taught many things which you already know.
He submits himself to be seen through a microscope, who suffers himself to be caught in a fit of passion.
Say not you know another entirely till you have divided an inheritance with him.
Where there is much pretension, much has been borrowed; nature never pretends.
If you see one cold and vehement at the same time, set him down for a fanatic.
Action, looks, words, steps, form the alphabet by which you may spell character.
Strange that cowards cannot see that their greatest safety lies in dauntless courage.
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
He who is passionate and hasty is generally honest. It is your cool, dissembling hypocrite of whom you should beware.
The mingled incentives which lead to action are often too subtle and lie too deep for us to analyze.
The more any one speaks of himself, the less he likes to hear another talked of.
He knows not how to speak who cannot be silent; still less how to act with vigour and decision. - Who hastens to the end is silent: loudness is impotence.
The more uniform a man's voice, step, manner of conversation, handwriting--the more quiet, uniform, settled, his actions, his character.
The wrath that on conviction subsides into mildness, is the wrath of a generous mind.
He who freely praises what he means to purchase, and he who enumerates the faults of what he means to sell, may set up a partnership with honesty.
He whose pride oppresses the humble may perhaps be humbled, but will never be humble.
He who prorogues the honesty of today till to-morrow will probably prorogue his to-morrows to eternity.
Avoid the eye that discovers with rapidity the bad, and is slow to see the good.
It is possible that a wise and good man may be prevailed on to game; but it is impossi∣ble that a professed gamester should be a wise and good man.