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Take here the grand secret if not of pleasing all, yet of displeasing none, and court mediocrity, avoid originality, and sacrifice to fashion.

Johann Kaspar Lavater

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Johann Kaspar Lavater
Age: 59 †
Born: 1741
Born: November 15
Died: 1801
Died: January 2
Criminologist
Illustrator
Painter
Philosopher
Poet
Theologian
Writer
City of Zurich
Johann Caspar Lavater
J. C. Lavater
j. c. lavater
Court
Sacrifice
Displeasing
Clothes
Pleasing
Fashion
Originality
Secret
Mediocrity
Take
Grand
Avoid
None

More quotes by Johann Kaspar Lavater

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Neatness begets order but from order to taste there is the same difference as from taste to genius, or from love to friendship.
Johann Kaspar Lavater
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The mingled incentives which lead to action are often too subtle and lie too deep for us to analyze.
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Intuition is the clear conception of the whole at once.
Johann Kaspar Lavater
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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.
Johann Kaspar Lavater
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Nothing is so pregnant as cruelty so multifarious, so rapid, so ever teeming a mother is unknown to the animal kingdom each of her experiments provokes another and refines upon the last though always progressive, yet always remote from the end.
Johann Kaspar Lavater
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He who has no taste for order, will be often wrong in his judgment, and seldom considerate or conscientious in his actions.
Johann Kaspar Lavater
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A sneer is often the sign of heartless malignity.
Johann Kaspar Lavater
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Don't speak evil of someone if you don't know for certain, and if you do know ask yourself, why am I telling it?
Johann Kaspar Lavater
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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.
Johann Kaspar Lavater
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There is a manner of forgiveness so divine that you are ready to embrace the offender for having called it forth.
Johann Kaspar Lavater
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He who sedulously attends, pointedly asks, calmly speaks, coolly answers and ceases when he has no more to say is in possession of some of the best requisites of man
Johann Kaspar Lavater
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Who is fatal to others is so to himself.
Johann Kaspar Lavater
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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.
Johann Kaspar Lavater
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He surely is most in need of another's patience, who has none of his own.
Johann Kaspar Lavater
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Thinkers are scarce as gold but he whose thoughts embrace all his subject, and who pursues it uninterruptedly and fearless of consequences, is a diamond of enormous size.
Johann Kaspar Lavater
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The craftiest trickery are too short and ragged a cloak to cover a bad heart.
Johann Kaspar Lavater
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A gift--its kind, its value and appearance the silence or the pomp that attends it the style in which it reaches you--may decide the dignity or vulgarity of the giver.
Johann Kaspar Lavater
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Not every one who has the gift of speech understands the value of silence.
Johann Kaspar Lavater
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Words are the wings of actions.
Johann Kaspar Lavater
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There are many kinds of smiles, each having a distinct character. Some announce goodness and sweetness, others betray sarcasm, bitterness and pride some soften the countenance by their languishing tenderness, others brighten by their spiritual vivacity.
Johann Kaspar Lavater