Johann Kaspar Lavater - Aphorisms on man

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

Johann Kaspar Lavater
Who cuts is easily wounded. The readier you are to offend the sooner you are offended.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
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
A single spark of occasion discharges the child of passions into a thousand crackers of desire.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
The freer you feel yourself in the presence of another, the more free is he.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
Who is open without levity; generous without waste; secret without craft; humble without meanness; bold without insolence; cautious without anxiety; regular, yet not formal; mild, yet not timid; firm, yet not tyrannical--is made to pass the ordeal of honor, friendship, virtue.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
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.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
The loss of taste for what is right is loss of all right taste.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
He who attempts to make others believe in means which he himself despises is a puffer; he who makes use of more means than he knows to be necessary is a quack; and he who ascribes to those means a greater efficacy than his own experience warrants is an impostor.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
As man's love or hatred, so he. Love and hatred exist only personified.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
It is possible that a wise and good man may be prevailed on to game; but it is impossible that a professed gamester should be a wise and good man.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
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
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
Who forces himself on others is to himself a load. Impetuous curiosity is empty and inconstant. Prying intrusion may be suspected of whatever is little.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
Be not the fourth friend of him who had three before and lost them.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
The cruelty of the effeminate is more dreadful than that or the hardy.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
He, who cannot forgive a trespass of malice to his enemy, has never yet tasted the most sublime enjoyment of love.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
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.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
Never say you know a man until you have divided an inheritance with him.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
Venerate four characters: the sanguine who has checked volatility and the rage for pleasure; the choleric who has subdued passion and pride; the phlegmatic emerged from indolence; and the melancholy who has dismissed avarice, suspicion and asperity.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
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
The procrastinator is not only indolent and weak, but commonly, false, too; most of the weak are false.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
He whose pride oppresses the humble may perhaps be humbled, but will never be humble.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
Be certain that he who has betrayed thee once will betray thee again.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
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
All affectation is the vain and ridiculous attempt of poverty to appear rich.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
Three days of uninterrupted company in a vehicle will make you better acquainted with another, than one hour's conversation with him every day for three years.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
Trust not him with your secrets, who, when left alone in the room, turns over your papers.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
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.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
Neatness begets order; but from order to taste there is the same difference as from taste to genius, or from love to friendship.

Johann Kaspar Lavater