277 Quotes by Johann Kaspar Lavater

To realize that you were mistaken, is just the acknowledgement, that you are wiser today than you were yesterday.

All affectation is the vain and ridiculous attempt of poverty to appear rich.

The discovery of truth, by slow progressive meditation, is wisdom. – Intuition of truth, not preceded by perceptible meditation, is genius.

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?

He who, silent, loves to be with us – he who loves us in our silence – has touched one of the keys that ravish hearts.

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.

Thousands are hated, while none are loved without a real cause.

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.

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.