Quotes from Johann Kaspar Lavater

Where pride begins, love ceases.

Trust him little who praise all, him less who censures all and him least who is indifferent about all.

Trust him with none of thy individualities who is, or pretends to be, two things at once.

The true friend of truth and good loves them under all forms, but he loves them most under the most simple form.

True worth is as inevitably discovered by the facial expression, as its opposite is sure to be clearly represented there. The human face is nature's tablet, the truth is certainly written thereon.

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.

Kiss the hand of him who can renounce what he has publicly taught when convicted of his error, and who, with heartfelt joy, embraces truth, though with the sacrifice of favourite opinions.

The man who loves with his whole heart truth will love still more he who suffers for truth.

He who when called upon to speak a disagreeable truth tells it boldly and has done is both bolder and milder than he who nibbles in a low voice and never ceases nibbling.

True love, like the eye, can bear no flaw.

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

When you doubt between words, use the plainest, the commonest, the most idiomatic. Eschew fine words as you would rouge; love simple ones as you would the native roses on your cheek.

How few our real wants, and how vast our imaginary ones!

He can feel no little wants who is in pursuit of grandeur.

In the society of ladies, want of sense is not so unpardonable as want of manners.

Cowards cannot see that their greatest safety lies in dauntless courage.

The worst of faces still is human.

The public seldom forgive twice.

Mistrust the person who finds everything good, and the person who finds everything evil, and mistrust even more the person who is indifferent to everything.

The great rule of moral conduct is, next to God, to respect Time.

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

Who makes quick use of the moment is a genius of prudence.

Truth, wisdom, love, seek reasons; malice only seeks causes.

Wisdom is the repose of the mind.