Johann Kaspar Lavater - Aphorisms on man

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The more unharmonious and inconsistent your objects of desire, the more inconsequent, inconstant, unquiet, the more ignoble, idiotical, and criminal yourself.

Johann Kaspar Lavater
The acquisition of will, for one thing exclusively, presupposes entire acquaintance with many others.

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

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

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

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
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
Who begins with severity, in judging of another, ends commonly with falsehood.

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

Johann Kaspar Lavater