Johann Kaspar Lavater

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• 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.

Aphorisms on Man (c. 1788)

• Who in the same given time can produce more than others has vigor; who can produce more and better, has talents; who can produce what none else can, has genius.
  • No. 23

• You may tell a man thou art a fiend, but not your nose wants blowing; to him alone who can bear a thing of that kind, you may tell all.
  • No. 84

• Say not you know another entirely, till you have divided an inheritance with him.
  • No. 157

• Have you ever seen a pedant with a warm heart?
  • No. 260

• If you see one cold and vehement at the same time, set him down for a fanatic.
  • No. 282

• 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.
  • No. 302

• Him, who incessantly laughs in the street, you may commonly hear grumbling in his closet.
  • No. 305

• Let none turn over books, or roam the stars in quest of God, who sees him not in man.
  • No. 398

• Trust not him with your secrets, who, when left alone in your room, turns over your papers.
  • No. 449

• Neatness begets order; but from order to taste there is the same difference as from taste to genius, or from love to friendship.
  • No. 583

• The public seldom forgive twice.
  • No. 595

• Venerate four characters: the sanguine who has checked volatility and the rage for pleasure; the choleric who has subdued passion and pride; the phlegmatic emerged from indolence; and the melancholy who has dismissed avarice, suspicion and asperity.
  • No. 609

• If you mean to know yourself, interline such of these aphorisms as affect you agreeably in reading, and set a mark to such as left a sense of uneasiness with you; and then show your copy to whom you please.
  • No. 643