Johann Kaspar Lavater
Johann Kaspar Lavater
Johann KasparLavaterwas a Swiss poet, writer, philosopher, physiognomist and theologian...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionTheologian
Date of Birth15 November 1741
CountryGermany
missing trying gains
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.
eye
Avoid the eye that discovers with rapidity the bad, and is slow to see the good.
humble anxiety secret
Who is open without levity; generous without waste; secret without craft; humble without meanness; bold without insolence; cautious without anxiety; regular, yet not formal; mild, yet not timid; firm, yet not tyrannical--is made to pass the ordeal of honor, friendship, virtue.
levity produce malice
Indiscretion, rashness, falsehood, levity, and malice, produce each other.
loss taste
The loss of taste for what is right is loss of all right taste.
judgment insincerity malice
The smiles that encourage severity of judgment hide malice and insincerity.
impotence
Loudness is impotence.
college air smell
He who comes from the kitchen, smells of its smoke; and he who adheres to a sect, has something of its cant; the college air pursues the student; and dry inhumanity him who herds with literary pedants.
art honor enemy
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?
anger passion suffering
He submits himself to be seen through a microscope, who suffers himself to be caught in a fit of passion.
men assuming language
Whenever a man undergoes a considerable change, in consequence of being observed by others, whenever he assumes another gait, another language, than what he had before he thought himself observed, be advised to guard yourself against him.
fearless gold size
Thinkers are scarce as gold; but he whose thoughts embrace all his subject, and who pursues it uninterruptedly and fearless of consequences, is a diamond of enormous size.
reading mean know-yourself
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.
mean self existence
Existence is self-enjoyment, by means of some object distinct from ourselves.