Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann / Johann Georg Zimmermann was a Swiss philosophical writer, naturalist, and physician.
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Open your mouth and purse cautiously; and your stock of wealth and reputation shall, at least in repute, be great.
—Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
Topics: Caution
Soldiers are the only carnivorous animals that live in a gregarious state.
—Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
Never lose sight of this important truth, that no one can be truly great until he has gained a knowledge of himself, a knowledge which can only be acquired by occasional retirement.
—Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
In fame’s temple there is always to be found a niche for rich dunces, importunate scoundrels, or successful butchers of the human race.
—Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
Topics: Fame
We protract the career of time by employment, we lengthen the duration of our lives by wise thoughts and useful actions. Life to him who wishes not to have lived in vain is thought and action.
—Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
Topics: Occupation, Action
Gambling houses are temples where the most sordid and turbulent passions contend; there no spectator can be indifferent. A card or a small square of ivory interests more than the loss of an empire, or the ruin of an unoffending group of infants, and their nearest relatives.
—Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
Topics: Gambling
Conceit and confidence are both of them cheats.—The first always imposes on itself; the second frequently deceives others.
—Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
Topics: Conceit
The weak may be joked out of anything but their weakness.
—Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
Topics: Weakness
The rich and luxurious may claim an exclusive right to those pleasures which are capable of being purchased by pelf, in which the mind has no enjoyment, and which only afford a temporary relief to languor by steeping the senses in forgetfulness; but in the precious pleasures of the intellect, so easily accessible by all mankind, the great have no exclusive privilege; for such enjoyments are only to be procured by our own industry.
—Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
Profound meditation in solitude and silence frequently exalts the mind above its natural tone, fires the imagination, produces the most refined and sublime conceptions. The soul then tastes the purest and most refined delight, and almost loses the idea of existence in the intellectual pleasure it receives. The mind on every motion darts through space into eternity; and raised, in its free enjoyment of its powers by its own enthusiasm, strengthens itself in the habitude of contemplating the noblest subjects, and of adopting the most heroic pursuits.
—Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
Topics: Meditation
If you ask me which is the real hereditary sin of human nature, do you imagine I shall answer pride, or luxury, or ambition, or egotism? No; I shall say indolence. Who conquers indolence will conquer all the rest. Indeed all good principles must stagnate without mental activity.
—Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
Topics: Laziness
Sloth is torpidity of the mental faculties; the sluggard is a living insensible.
—Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
Laws act after crimes have been committed; prevention goes before them both.
—Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
Those beings only are fit for solitude, who like nobody, and are liked by nobody.
—Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
Topics: Solitude
By fools knaves fatten; every knave finds a gull.
—Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
Novels do not force their readers to sin, but only instruct them how to sin.
—Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
Ignorance, poverty, and vanity make many soldiers.
—Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
Pride in boasting of family antiquity, makes duration stand for merit.
—Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
Topics: Ancestry
Never suffer the prejudice of the eye to determine the heart.
—Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
Topics: Proverbs, Prejudice
It would be a considerable consolation to the poor and discontented, could they but see the means whereby the wealth they covet has been acquired, or the misery that it entails.
—Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
Topics: Poverty
Beauty is often worse than wine; intoxicating both the holder and beholder.
—Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
Topics: Wine, Beauty
Silence is the ornament and safeguard of the ignorant. Silence is the safest response for all the contradiction that arises from impertinence, vulgarity, or envy.
—Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
Topics: Silence
The change we personally experience from time to time, we obstinately deny to our principles.
—Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
Topics: Principles
Put this restriction on your pleasures; be cautious that they injure no being that lives.
—Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
Topics: Pleasure
A good name will wear out; a bad one may be turned; a nickname lasts forever.
—Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
Beauty gains little, and homeliness and deformity lose much by gaudy attire.
—Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
Topics: Dress
There appears to exist a greater desire to live long than to live well! Measure by man’s desires, he cannot live long enough; measure by his good deeds, and he has not lived long enough; measure by his evil deeds, and he has lived too long.
—Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
Topics: Life
A moral lesson is better expressed in short sayings than in long discourse.
—Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
Topics: Morality, Morals
Many have been ruined by their fortunes, and many have escaped ruin by the want of fortune. To obtain it the great have become little, and the little great.
—Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
Topics: Forgiveness, Fortune
Humility is the first lesson we learn from reflection, and self-distrust the first proof we give of having obtained a knowledge of ourselves.
—Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
Topics: Humility
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