Johann Kaspar Lavater
Johann Kaspar Lavater
Johann KasparLavaterwas a Swiss poet, writer, philosopher, physiognomist and theologian...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionTheologian
Date of Birth15 November 1741
CountryGermany
heartless sneer
A sneer is often the sign of heartless malignity.
patience needs
He surely is most in need of another's patience, who has none of his own.
trust
Women are proverbially credulous.
world matter immensity
Each particle of matter is an immensity, each leaf a world, each insect an inexplicable compendium.
character men manners
As a man's salutations, so is the total of his character; in nothing do we lay ourselves so open as in our manner of meeting and salutation.
love eye bears
True love, like the eye, can bear no flaw.
honesty men self
An entirely honest man, in the severe sense of the word, exists no more than an entirely dishonest knave; the best and the worst are only approximations to those qualities. Who are those that never contradict themselves? yet honesty never contradicts itself. Who are they that always contradict themselves? yet knavery is mere self-contradiction. Thus the knowledge of man determines not the things themselves, but their proportions, the quantum of congruities and incongruities.
arbitrary habit masters
Habit is altogether too arbitrary a master for me to submit to.
greatness laughing mirth
He who, in questions of right, virtue, or duty, sets himself above all ridicule, is truly great, and shall laugh in the end with truer mirth than ever he was laughed at.
god wise humble
It is one of my favorite thoughts that God manifests Himself to men in all the wise, good, humble, generous, great, and magnanimous men.
hypocrite passion honest
He who is passionate and hasty is generally honest. It is your cool, dissembling hypocrite of whom you should beware.
wise blood silence
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.
inspire mind superstitions
Superstition always inspires littleness, religion grandeur of mind; the superstitious raises beings inferior to himself to deities.
beautiful mean humility
What is the elevation of the soul? A prompt, delicate, certain feeling for all that is beautiful, all that is grand; a quick resolution to do the greatest good by the smallest means; a great benevolence joined to a great strength and great humility.