Johann Kaspar Lavater Quotes

Swiss writer, theologian and poet, wrote in German.

He scatters enjoyment who can enjoy much. Strange that cowards cannot see that their greatest safety lies in dauntless courage. The public seldom forgive twice. He knows very little of mankind who expects, by any facts or reasoning, to convince a determined party man. 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. The proverbial wisdom of the populace in the street, on the roads, and in the markets instructs the ear of him who studies man more fully than a thousand rules ostentatiously displayed. The worst of faces still is human. Stubbornness is the strength of the weak. Be not the fourth friend of him who had three before and lost them. He who, silent, loves to be with us - he who loves us in our silence - has touched one of the keys that ravish hearts. 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 manner of giving shows the character of the giver, more than the gift itself. 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. Thinkers are as scarce as gold. 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. Injustice arises either from precipitation, or indolence, or from a mixture of both. - The rapid and slow are seldom just; the unjust wait either not at all, or wait too long. He who reforms himself has done more towards reforming the public than a crowd or noisy, impotent patriots. 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. Fools learn nothing from wise men, but wise men learn much from fools. Vociferation and calmness of character seldom meet in the same person. To realize that you were mistaken, is just the acknowledgement , that you are wiser today than you were yesterday. Let none turn over books, or roam the stars in quest of God, who sees him not in man. A sneer is often the sign of heartless malignity. He also has energy who cannot be deprived of it. He surely is most in need of another's patience, who has none of his own. 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. 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. True worth is as inevitably discovered by the facial expression, as its opposite is sure to be clearly represented there. The human face is nature's tablet, the truth is certainly written thereon. Action, looks, words, steps, form the alphabet by which you may spell character. He who can conceal his joys, is greater than he who can hide his griefs

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