Johann Kaspar Lavater Quotes

Johann Kaspar Lavater was a Swiss poet, writer, philosopher, physiognomist and theologian.

✵ 15. November 1741 – 2. January 1801
Johann Kaspar Lavater photo
Johann Kaspar Lavater: 24   quotes 0   likes

Famous Johann Kaspar Lavater Quotes

“Never tell evil of a man, if you do not know it for certainty, and if you know it for a certainty, then ask yourself, 'Why should I tell it?”

As quoted in What Billingsgate Thought: A Country Gentleman's Views on Snobbery (1919) by William Alexander Newman Dorland

Johann Kaspar Lavater Quotes

“Where there is much pretension, much has been borrowed:”

As quoted in Mental Recreation; or, Select Maxims (1831), p. 234
Context: Where there is much pretension, much has been borrowed: nature never pretends.

“Have you ever seen a pedant with a warm heart?”

No. 260
Aphorisms on Man (c. 1788)

“The more honesty a man has, the less he affects the air of a saint.”

As quoted in Many Thoughts of Many Minds (1862) edited by Henry Southgate, p. 290

“The public seldom forgive twice.”

No. 595
Aphorisms on Man (c. 1788)

“Act well at the moment, and you have performed a good action to all eternity.”

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 4

“Happy the heart to whom God has given enough strength and courage to suffer for Him, to find happiness in simplicity and the happiness of others.”

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 246

“The jealous is possessed by a "fine mad devil" and a dull spirit at once.”

No. 345
In William Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act 5, sc. 1, Falstaff says that Mistress Ford's husband has "the finest mad devil of jealousy in him".
Aphorisms on Man (1788)

“Too much gravity argues a shallow mind.”

No. 183
Aphorisms on Man (1788)

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