Johann Kaspar Lavater - Aphorisms on man

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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.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
The discovery of truth by slow, progressive meditation is talent. Intuition of the truth, not preceded by perceptible meditation, is genius.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
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
The manner of giving shows the character of the giver more than the gift itself. There is a princely manner of giving, and a royal manner of accepting.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
If you mean to know yourself, interline such of these aphorisms as affect you agreeably in reading, and set a mark to such as left a sense of uneasiness with you; and then show your copy to whom you please.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
If you see one cold and vehement at the same time, set him down for a fanatic.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
He who can at all times sacrifice pleasure to duty approaches sublimity.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
The creditor whose appearance gladdens the heart of a debtor may hold his head in sunbeams and his foot on storms.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
The obstinacy of the indolent and weak is less conquerable than that of the fiery and bold.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
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
Wishes run over in loquacious impotence, will presses on with laconic energy.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
The quicker, the louder, the applause with which another tries to gain you over to his purpose--the bitterer his censure if he miss his aim.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
As you treat your body, so your house, your domestics, your enemies, your friends. Dress is a table of your contents.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
Who gives is positive; who receives is negative; still there remains an immense class of mere passives.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
Dread more the blunderer's friendship than the calumniator's enmity.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
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
Copiousness and simplicity, variety and unity, constitute real greatness of character.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
Superstition always inspires littleness, religion grandeur of mind; the superstitious raises beings inferior to himself to deities.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
Who partakes in another's joys is a more humane character than he who partakes in his griefs.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
The affectation of sanctity is a blotch on the face of piety.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
The wrath that on conviction subsides into mildness, is the wrath of a generous mind.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
Vociferation and calmness of character seldom meet in the same person.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
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
The proportion of genius to the vulgar is like one to a million.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
Indiscretion, rashness, falsehood, levity, and malice, produce each other.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
Certain trifling flaws sit as disgracefully on a character of elegance as a ragged button on a court dress.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
Who is respectable when thinking himself alone and free from observation will be so before the eye of all the world.

Johann Kaspar Lavater