Johann Kaspar (or Caspar) Lavater (15 November 1741 – 2 January 1801) was a Swiss poet, writer, philosopher, physiognomist and theologian.
Airs of importance are the credentials of impotence.
He who can conceal his joys, is greater than he who can hide his griefs
There are no friends more inseparable than pride and hardness of heart, humility and love, falsehood and impudence.
The loss of taste for what is right is loss of all right taste.
He who freely praises what he means to purchase, and he who enumerates the faults of what he means to sell, may set up a partnership with honesty.
There is no mortal truly wise and restless at once; wisdom is the repose of minds.
Whatever obscurities may involve religious tenets, humility and love constitute the essence of true religion; the humble is formed to adore, the loving to associate with eternal love.
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?
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.
The acquisition of will, for one thing exclusively, presupposes entire acquaintance with many others.
She neglects her heart who too closely studies her glass.
The horse-laugh indicates brutality of character.
The more honesty a man has, the less he affects the air of a saint.
Trust him with none of thy individualities who is, or pretends to be, two things at once.
Trust him not with your secrets, who, when left alone in your room, turns over your papers.
The mingled incentives which lead to action are often too subtle and lie too deep for us to analyze.
Desire is the uneasiness a man finds in himself upon the absence of anything whose present enjoyment carries the idea of delight with it.
He who seeks to imbitter innocent pleasure has a cancer in his heart.
He who is passionate and hasty is generally honest. It is your cool, dissembling hypocrite of whom you should beware.
The proverbial wisdom of the populace in the street, on the roads, and in the markets instructs the ear of him who studies man more fully than a thousand rules ostentatiously displayed.