Johann Kaspar Lavater Quotes

The greater the man, the more he is soaked in the atmosphere of his time; only thus can he get a wide enough grasp of it to be able to change substantially the pattern of knowledge and action.

To act well in this world, one must sacrifice all personal desires. The people who become missionaries of religious thought have no other Fatherland than this thought. Man is not on Earth merely to be happy, nor even simply to be honest. He is here to realize great things for humanity, to attain nobility, and to surmount the vulgarity of nearly every individual.

A soft, easy life is not worth living, if it impairs the fibre of brain and heart and muscle. We must dare to be great; and we must realize that greatness is the fruit of toil and sacrifice and high courage... For us is the life of action, of strenuous performance of duty; let us live in the harness, striving mightily; let us rather run the risk of wearing out than rusting out.

I believe great people do things before they are ready.

Even the greatest actions of a celebrated person labor under this disadvantage, that however surprising and extraordinary they may be, they are no more than what are expected from him.

Remember that this greatness was won by men with courage, with knowledge of their duty, and with a sense of honor in action.

Content is not the pathway to great deeds.

We cannot do great deeds unless we're willing to do the small things that make up the sum of greatness.

When you discover what you will be in your life, set out to do it as if God Almighty called you at this particular moment in history to do it. Don't just set out to do a good job.

To be ordinary is not a choice: It is the usual freedom of men without visions.

Let every action aim solely at the common good.

You have no ambition, I well know. Your wishes are all moderate.' 'As moderate as those of the rest of the world, I believe. I wish as well as every body else to be perfectly happy, but like every body else it must be in my own way. Greatness will not make me so.

In the absence of a great dream, pettiness prevails.

The affirmative class monopolize the homage of mankind. They originate and execute all the great feats. What a force was coiled upin the skull of Napoleon!

Be great in act, as you have been in thought.

God is not looking for men of great faith, He is looking for common men to trust His great faithfulness.

Just as a waterfall grows slower and more lightly suspended as it plunges down, so the great man of action tends to act with greater calmness than his tempestuous desires prior to the deed would lead one to expect.

If you try, you will find it impossible to do one great thing. You can only do many small things with great love.

The greatness of action includes immoral as well as moral greatness--Cortes and Napoleon, as well as Luther and Washington.

Great actions speak great minds.

The great man of science, unless he is also a philosopher, ... deserves the title of genius as little as the man of action.

This grace (purity of intention) is so excellent that it sanctifies the most common actions of our life and yet is so necessary that without it, the very best actions of our devotion are imperfect and vicious.

That wealth and greatness are often regarded with the respect and admiration which are due only to wisdom and virtue; and that the contempt, of which vice and folly are the only proper objects, is most often unjustly bestowed upon poverty and weakness, has been the complaint of moralists in all ages.