Johann Kaspar Lavater Quotes

• Where there is much pretension, much has been borrowed; nature never pretends.

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

• Fools learn nothing from wise men, but wise men learn much from fools.

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

• Let none turn over books or scan the stars in quest of God who see Him not in man.

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

• 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

• Be not the fourth friend of him who had three before and lost them.

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

• The jealous are possessed by a mad devil and a dull spirit at the same time.

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

• Don’t speak evil of someone if you don’t know for certain, and if you do know ask yourself, why am I telling it?

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

• He who can conceal his joys, is greater than he who can hide his griefs.

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

  Topics in Grief, Joy

• The prudent see only the difficulties, the bold only the advantages, of a great enterprise; the hero sees both; diminishes the former and makes the latter preponderate, and so conquers.

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

  Topics in Business

• You are not very good if you are not better than your best friends imagine you to be.

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

  Topics in Best Friend

• There are many kinds of smiles, each having a distinct character. Some announce goodness and sweetness, others betray sarcasm, bitterness and pride; some soften the countenance by their languishing tenderness, others brighten by their spiritual vivac.

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

• He alone is an acute observer, who can observe minutely without being observed.

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

  Tags in Observation

• He who reforms himself has done more toward reforming the public than a crowd of noisy, impotent patriots.

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

  Tags in Reform

• 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

• To know yourself you have only to set down a true statement of those that ever loved or hated you.

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

  Topics in Experience

• He who seldom speaks, and with one calm well-timed word can strike dumb the loquacious, is a genius or a hero.

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

  Topics in Genius

• Intuition is the clear conception of the whole at once.

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

  Tags in Intuition

• Trust him not with your secrets, who, when left alone in your room, turns over your papers.

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

  Topics in Trust

  Tags in Doubt/Uncertainty

Johann Kaspar Lavater (58)

Birth:	15th November, 1741
Death:	2nd January, 1801
Nationality:	Swiss
Profession:	Poet, Theologian, Writer

About

Johann Kaspar Lavater was born in Zürich, Switzerland. He was a Swiss poet, writer, philosopher, physiognomist and theologian. He served as pastor of St. Peter’s Church in Zürich. He is most well known for his work in the field of physiognomy, Physiognomische Fragmente zur Beförderung der Menschenkenntnis und Menschenliebe, published between 1775 and 1778. His most important books are Aussichten in die Ewigkeit, Geheimes Tagebuch von einem Beobachter seiner selbst, Pontius Pilatus, and Nathanael.

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