Nov 15, 1741 - Jan 2, 1801
Swiss writer, theologian and poet, wrote in German.
Share this author:
All affectation is the vain and ridiculous attempt of poverty to appear rich
It is a poor wit who lives by borrowing the words, decisions, mien, inventions and actions of others.
Have you ever seen a pedant with a warm heart?
Kiss the hand of him who can renounce what he has publicly taught, when convicted of his error; and who, with heartfelt joy, embraces the truth, though with the sacrifice of favorite opinions.
Words are the wings of actions.
Sensibility is the power of woman.
Wisdom is the repose of the mind.
He whom common, gross, or stale objects allure, and when obtained, content, is a vulgar being, incapable of greatness in thought or action.
Vanity and rudeness are seldom seen together.
She neglects her heart who too closely studies her glass.
Have I done aught of value to my fellow-men? Then have I done much for myself.
The man who loves with his whole heart truth will love still more he who suffers for truth.
Women are proverbially credulous.
Each particle of matter is an immensity, each leaf a world, each insect an inexplicable compendium.
Superstition always inspires littleness, religion grandeur of mind; the superstitious raises beings inferior to himself to deities.
What is the elevation of the soul? A prompt, delicate, certain feeling for all that is beautiful, all that is grand; a quick resolution to do the greatest good by the smallest means; a great benevolence joined to a great strength and great humility.
Softness of smile indicates softness of character.
A beautiful smile is to the female countenance what the sunbeam is to the landscape; it embellishes an inferior face and redeems an ugly one.
Close thine ear against him that shall open his mouth secretly against another. If thou receivest not his words, they fly back and wound the reporter. If thou dost receive them, they fly forward and wound the receiver.
Every man has his devilish minutes.
The true friend of truth and good loves them under all forms, but he loves them most under the most simple form.
Not every one who has the gift of speech understands the value of silence.
He knows not how to speak who cannot be silent; still less how to act with vigor and decision. Who hastens to the end is silent; loudness is impotence.
Who, in the midst of just provocation to anger, instantly finds the fit word which settles all around him in silence is more than wise or just; he is, were he a beggar, of more than royal blood, he is of celestial descent.
He who is passionate and hasty is generally honest. It is your cool, dissembling hypocrite of whom you should beware.
In the society of ladies, want of sense is not so unpardonable as want of manners.
As a man's salutations, so is the total of his character; in nothing do we lay ourselves so open as in our manner of meeting and salutation.
True love, like the eye, can bear no flaw.
An entirely honest man, in the severe sense of the word, exists no more than an entirely dishonest knave; the best and the worst are only approximations to those qualities. Who are those that never contradict themselves? yet honesty never contradicts itself. Who are they that always contradict themselves? yet knavery is mere self-contradiction. Thus the knowledge of man determines not the things themselves, but their proportions, the quantum of congruities and incongruities.
Habit is altogether too arbitrary a master for me to submit to.
