Johann Kaspar Lavater Character Quotations

Action, looks, words, steps, form the alphabet by which you may spell character.

As your enemies and your friends, so are you

The horse-laugh indicates brutality of character.

Decided ends are sure signs of a decided character.

The more uniform a man's voice, step, manner of conversation, handwriting--the more quiet, uniform, settled, his actions, his character.

Softness of smile indicates softness of character.

Vociferation and calmness of character seldom meet in the same person.

The greatest of characters, no doubt, would be he, who, free of all trifling accidental helps, could see objects through one grand immutable medium, always at hand, and proof against illusion and time, reflecting every object in its true shape and colour through all the fluctuation of things.

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.

Copiousness and simplicity, variety and unity, constitute real greatness of character.

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.

The manner of giving shows the character of the giver, more than the gift itself.

Avoid connecting yourself with characters whose good and bad sides are unmixed and have not fermented together; they resemble vials of vinegar and oil; or palletts set with colors; they are either excellent at home and insufferable abroad, or intolerable within doors and excellent in public; they are unfit for friendship, merely because their stamina, their ingredients of character are too single, too much apart; let them be finely ground up with each other, and they are incomparable.

Certain trifling flaws sit as disgracefully on a character of elegance as a ragged button on a court dress.

Joy and grief decide character. What exalts prosperity? what imbitters grief? what leaves us indifferent? what interests us? As the interest of man, so his God,--as his God, so he.

Who partakes in another's joys is a more humane character than he who partakes in his griefs.

Venerate four characters: the sanguine who has checked volatility and the rage for pleasure; the choleric who has subdued passion and pride; the phlegmatic emerged from indolence; and the melancholy who has dismissed avarice, suspicion and asperity.