"Actions, looks, words, steps, form the alphabet by which you may spell characters."

Johann Kaspar Lavater Literature See all quotes by Johann Kaspar Lavater →

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More by Johann Kaspar Lavater

“The public seldom forgive twice.”

“There are but three classes of men — the retrograde, the stationary, the progressive.”

“The more honesty a man has, the less he affects the air of a saint — the affectation of sanctity is a blotch on the face of piety.”

“Too much gravity argues a shallow mind.”

“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.”

“Neatness begets order; but from order to taste there is the same difference as from taste to genius, or from love to friendship.”

Resonant Thoughts

"He unveils Himself as the One He is by veiling Himself in a form which He Himself is not. He uses this form distinct from Himself, He uses its work and sign, in order to be objective in, with and unde…"

— Karl Barth

Religion1886–1968

#knowledge

"What are our objects? They are two. In the first place, we all desire the maintenance and increase of the national strength and the prosperity of the United Kingdom...in the second place, our object i…"

— Joseph Chamberlain

Politics1836–1914

#time

"I’d call them dangerously loopy heretics who are well down the slippery slope to hell, Bob. A hell of their own creation, even if you don’t believe in the literal sulfur-and-brimstone variety presided…"

— Charles Stross

Literature1964

#love

"And thus daily, and month by month, and year by year, he will work at his mind, training it in these consecutive habits of thought, and he will learn to choose that of which he thinks; he will no long…"

— Annie Besant

Politics1847–1933

#mind