Johann Kaspar (or Caspar) Lavater (15 November 1741 – 2 January 1801) was a Swiss poet, writer, philosopher, physiognomist and theologian.
The most stormy ebullitions of passion, from blasphemy to murder, are less terrific than one single act of cool villainy.
He knows very little of mankind who expects, by any facts or reasoning, to convince a determined party man.
The miser robs himself.
Know in the first place, that mankind agree in essence, as they do in limbs and senses.
The more any one speaks of himself, the less he likes to hear another talked of.
The ambitious sacrifices all to what he terms honor, as the miser all to money.
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.
He who attempts to make others believe in means which he himself despises is a puffer; he who makes use of more means than he knows to be necessary is a quack; and he who ascribes to those means a greater efficacy than his own experience warrants is an impostor.
The more uniform a man's voice, step, manner of conversation, handwriting--the more quiet, uniform, settled, his actions, his character.
The worst of all knaves are those who can mimic their former honesty.
He who seldom speaks, and with one calm well-timed word can strike dumb the loquacious, is a genius or a hero.
He who goes round about in his requests wants commonly more than he chooses to appear to want.
A fop of fashion is the mercer's friend, the tailor's fool, and his own foe.
Who gives a trifle meanly is meaner than the trifle.
Fools learn nothing from wise men, but wise men learn much from fools.
The enemy of art is the enemy of nature; art is nothing but the highest sagacity and exertions of human nature; and what nature will he honor who honors not the human?
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.
A sneer is often the sign of heartless malignity.
Three days of uninterrupted company in a vehicle will make you better acquainted with another, than one hour's conversation with him every day for three years.
True love, like the eye, can bear no flaw.