The procrastinator is not only indolent and weak but commonly false too; most of the weak are false.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater
Topics: Delay
Pedantry and taste are as inconsistent as gayety and melancholy.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater
The firm, without pliancy, and the pliant, without firmness, resemble vessels without water, and water without vessels.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater
He can feel no little wants who is in pursuit of grandeur.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater
Topics: Desires
I know no friends more faithful and more inseparable than hard-heartedness and pride, humility and love, lies and impudence.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater
Topics: Vice
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
Topics: Independence
Act well at the moment, and you have performed a good action to all eternity.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater
Topics: Time Management, Action, Time, Value of Time
It is a poor wit who lives by borrowing the words, decisions, mien, inventions, and actions of others.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater
Topics: Imitation
Obstinacy is the strength of the weak. Firmness founded upon principle, upon truth and right, order and law, duty and generosity, is the obstinacy of sages.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater
Topics: Attitude
There is no mortal truly wise and restless at once; wisdom is the repose of minds.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater
The less you can enjoy, the poorer and scantier yourself; the more you can enjoy, the richer and more vigorous.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater
Topics: Enjoyment
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
Topics: Sincerity, Candor
What do I owe to my times, to my country, to my neighbors, to my friends?—Such are the questions which a virtuous man ought often to ask himself.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater
Topics: Obligation
He who sedulously attends, pointedly asks, calmly speaks, coolly answers, and ceases when he has no more to say, is in possession of some of the best requisites of conversation.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater
Topics: Conversation
Avoid him who, for mere curiosity, asks three questions running about a thing that cannot interest him.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater
Topics: Curiosity
He who has opportunities to inspect the sacred moments of elevated minds, and seizes none, is a son of dullness; but he who turns those moments into ridicule, will betray with a kiss, and in embracing, murder.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater
Topics: Opportunity
Volatility of words is carelessness in actions; words are the wings of actions.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater
Topics: Words
The great rule of moral conduct is, next to God, to respect time.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater
Topics: Time Management, Value of a Day, Morality, Time, Morals
All affectation is the vain and ridiculous attempt of poverty to appear rich.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater
Topics: Affectation
He who can conceal his joys is greater than he who can hide his griefs.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater
Topics: Grief, Joy
He alone has energy who cannot be deprived of it.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater
Topics: Energy
Thinkers are scarce as gold; but he, whose thoughts embrace all their subject, who pursues it uninterruptedly and fearless of consequences, is a diamond of enormous size.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater
Topics: Thought
Weaknesses, so called, are nothing more nor less than vice in disguise!
—Johann Kaspar Lavater
Topics: Weakness
The generous who is always just, and the just who is always generous, may, unannounced, approach the throne of heaven.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater
Topics: Generosity, Heaven
The most stormy ebullitions of passion, from blasphemy to murder, are less terrific than one single act of cool villainy; a still rabies is more dangerous than the paroxysms of a fever. Fear the boisterous savage of passion less than the sedately grinning villain.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater
The habit of sneering marks the egotist, the fool, or the knave, or all three.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater
Topics: Insults
Mistrust the man who finds everything good; the man who finds everything evil; and still more the man who is indifferent to everything.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater
Topics: Moderation
Trust him with little, who, without proofs, trusts you with everything, or when he has proved you, with nothing.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater
Topics: Confidence
Conscience is the sentinel of virtue.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater
Topics: Conscience
He who gives himself airs of importance exhibits the credentials of impotence.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater
Topics: Pride, Conceit, Self-Esteem
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Jean Antoine Petit-Senn Swiss Poet
- Hermann Hesse Swiss Novelist, Poet
- Thomas Browne English Author, Physician
- Henri Frederic Amiel Swiss Philosopher, Writer
- John C. Maxwell American Author, Speaker
- Karl Barth Swiss Protestant Theologian
- Alberto Giacometti Swiss Sculptor, Painter
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau French Philosopher
- Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi Swiss Educator
- Carl Gustav Jung Swiss Psychologist
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