Johann Kaspar Lavater Quotes

There is no such thing as perpetual tranquillity of mind while we live here; because life itself is but motion, and can never be without desire, nor without fear, no more than without sense.

My inner chemistry had been hijacked by a mad scientist, who poured the fizzy, volatile contents of my heart from a test tube marked SOBER REALITY into another labeled SUNNY DELUSION, and back again, faster and faster, until the floor of my life was slick with spillage.

The state of man is inconstancy, ennui, anxiety.

I'm a full-of-contradictions kind of guy.

Mutability of temper and inconsistency with ourselves is the greatest weakness of human nature.

Everything becomes so problematic because of basic faults: from a discontent with myself.

I'm inconsistent, even to myself.

My problem with interviews, one day I'll think one thing, and the next day I'll think the exact opposite.

I was on paper earning more money and having more success than I'd ever had. And it was also the most miserable I've ever been. When those things collided, I realised something was off. That's when I started poking around to figure out what was wrong.

There's certainly a side of me that isn't completely... sane. Or completely 'even' all the time. We all have our dark sides.

I don't feel like a 40-year-old. I feel more like four 10-year-olds, each pulling in a different direction.

My position requires my presence but it is so far from my heart.

I have been restless for as long as I can remember.

The man who is dissatisfied with himself, what can he do?

I definitely have no stability in my world; I feel the need to be up and merry all the time.

Everything is so chaotic and messy in the world, and I have always felt kind of dirty.

The whole world yearns after freedom, yet each creature is in love with his chains; this is the first paradox and inextricable knot of our nature.

It hurts to want everything and nothing at the same time.

If it weren't for the unconventionality of my desires, my mind might never have been forced to reckon with my body.

I’m torn between the desire to create and the desire to destroy.

She wanted to die, but she also wanted to live in Paris.

The human heart is like a ship on a stormy sea driven about by winds blowing from all four corners of heaven.

Every man is a mob, a chain gang of idiots.

To be longing for this thing to-day and for that thing to-morrow; to change likings for loathings, and to stand wishing and hankering at a venture--how is it possible for any man to be at rest in this fluctuant, wandering humor and opinion?

Maybe I'm not good for you. Maybe what I feel is wrong. Because I did love Ashton. She was all I needed... but never did I feel the uncontrollable desire to get her underneath me. Never did I make up reasons to get her to wrap her legs around me so I could feel her pressed up against me. Never. He swallowed hard. "Never did I think about being inside her