Nov 15, 1741 - Jan 2, 1801
Swiss writer, theologian and poet, wrote in German.
Share this author:
He who, in questions of right, virtue, or duty, sets himself above all ridicule, is truly great, and shall laugh in the end with truer mirth than ever he was laughed at.
Copiousness and simplicity, variety and unity, constitute real greatness of character.
It is one of my favorite thoughts that God manifests Himself to men in all the wise, good, humble, generous, great, and magnanimous men.
Be neither too early in the fashion, nor too long out of it; nor at any time in the extremes of it.
Dress is an index of your contents.
As you treat your body, so your house, your domestics, your enemies, your friends. Dress is a table of your contents.
Who forces himself on others is to himself a load. Impetuous curiosity is empty and inconstant. Prying intrusion may be suspected of whatever is little.
Avoid him who from mere curiosity asks three questions running about a thing that cannot interest Him.
Joy and grief decide character. What exalts prosperity? what imbitters grief? what leaves us indifferent? what interests us? As the interest of man, so his God,--as his God, so he.
Certain trifling flaws sit as disgracefully on a character of elegance as a ragged button on a court dress.
Avoid connecting yourself with characters whose good and bad sides are unmixed and have not fermented together; they resemble vials of vinegar and oil; or palletts set with colors; they are either excellent at home and insufferable abroad, or intolerable within doors and excellent in public; they are unfit for friendship, merely because their stamina, their ingredients of character are too single, too much apart; let them be finely ground up with each other, and they are incomparable.
No communication or gift can exhaust genius or impoverish charity.
Do not believe that a book is good, if in reading it thou dost not become more contented with thy existence, if it does not rouse up in thee most generous feelings.
He who goes round about in his requests wants commonly more than he chooses to appear to want.
Man without religion is a diseased creature, who would persuade himself he is well and needs not a physician; but woman without religion is raging and monstrous.
There are no friends more inseparable than pride and hardness of heart, humility and love, falsehood and impudence.
The policy of adapting one's self to circumstances makes all ways smooth.
He who seeks to imbitter innocent pleasure has a cancer in his heart.
The affectation of sanctity is a blotch on the face of piety.
What knowledge is there of which man is capable that is not founded on the exterior,--the relation that exists between visible and invisible, the perceptible and the imperceptible?
True philosophy is that which renders us to ourselves, and all others who surround us, better, and at the same time more content, more patient, more calm and more ready for all decent and pure enjoyment.
The mingled incentives which lead to action are often too subtle and lie too deep for us to analyze.
Modesty is silent when it would be improper to speak; the humble, without being called upon, never recollects to say anything of himself.
Half talent is no talent.
Truth, wisdom, love, seek reasons; malice only seeks causes.
Malice is poisoned by her own venom.
And still, laughter is akin to weeping.
Who partakes in another's joys is a more humane character than he who partakes in his griefs.
Beware of biting jests; the more truth they carry with them, the greater wounds they give, the greater smarts they cause, and the greater scars they leave behind them.
As the interest of man, so his God; as his God, so he.
