Johann Georg Ritter Von Zimmermann Quotes

There are few mortals so insensible that their affections cannot he gained by mildness, their confidence by sincerity, their hatred by scorn or neglect

Who conquers indolence conquers all other hereditary sins.

The quarter of an hour before dinner is the worst that suitors can choose.

Silence is the safest response for all the contradiction that arises from impertinence, vulgarity, or envy.

In fame's temple there is always a niche to be found for rich dunces, importunate scoundrels, or successful butchers of the human race.

The more you speak of yourself, the more you are likely to lie.

Comedians are not usually actors, but imitations of actors.

Suicides pay the world a bad compliment. Indeed, it may so happen that the world has been beforehand with them in incivility. Granted. Even then the retaliation is at their own expense.

A moral lesson is better expressed in short sayings than in long discourse.

Idlers cannot even find time to be idle, or the industrious to be at leisure. We must always be doing or suffering

By fools, knaves fatten; by bigots, priests are well clothed; every knave finds a gull.

Never suffer the prejudice of the eye to determine the heart.

The weak may be joked out of anything but their weakness.

In the sallies of badinage a polite fool shines; but in gravity he is as awkward as an elephant disporting.

Silence is a trick when it imposes. Pedants and scholars, churchmen and physicians, abound in silent pride.

Never lose sight of this important truth, that no one can be truly great until he has gained a knowledge of himself, a knowledge which can only be acquired by occasional retirement.

The ill usage of every minute is a new record against us in heaven.

News-hunters have great leisure, with little thought; much petty ambition to be considered intelligent, without any other pretension than being able to communicate what they have just learned.

We never read without profit if with the pen or pencil in our hand we mark such ideas as strike us by their novelty, or correct those we already possess.

Indolent people, whatever taste they may have for society, seek eagerly for pleasure, and find nothing. They have an empty head and seared hearts.

A good name will wear out; a bad one may be turned; a nickname lasts forever.

Troops of furies march in the drunkard's triumph.

Many have been ruined by their fortunes, and many have escaped ruin by the want of fortune. To obtain it the great have become little, and the little great.

When we meet with better fare than was expected, the disappointment is overlooked even by the unscrupulous. When we meet with worse than was expected, philosophers alone know how to make it better.

Though fancy may be the patient's complaint, necessity is often the doctor's.

It would be a considerable consolation to the poor and discontented could they but see the means whereby the wealth they covet has been acquired, or the misery that it entails.

The purse of the patient often protracts his case.

The sluggard is a living insensible.

An everlasting tranquility is, in my imagination, the highest possible felicity, because I know of no felicity on earth higher than that which a peaceful mind and contented heart afford.

Laugh as loud as you please at your companion's wit; do not even smile at his folly.

When ill news comes too late to be serviceable to your neighbor, keep it to yourself.

That happy state of mind, so rarely possessed, in which we can say, "I have enough," is the highest attainment of philosophy.

Those beings only are fit for solitude who are like nobody, and are liked by nobody.

Do not think that your Learning and Genius, your Wit or Sprightliness, are welcome everywhere. I was once told that my Company was disagreeable because I appeared so uncommonly happy.

Books afford the surest relief in the most melancholy moments.

Fools with bookish knowledge art children with edged weapons; they hurt themselves, and put others in pain.

Contempt is frequently regulated by fashion.

Age is suspicious but is not itself often suspected.

Economy is an excellent lure to betray people into expense.

Hunger is the mother of impatience and anger.

Unless the habit leads to happiness the best habit is to contract none.

Many species of wit are quite mechanical; these are the favorites of witlings, whose fame in words scarce outlives the remembrance of their funeral ceremonies.

Nobility should be elective, not hereditary.

Take care to be an economist in prosperity. There is no fear of your being one in adversity.

Family pride entertains many unsocial opinions.

Wit, to be well defined, must be defined by wit itself; then it will be worth listening to.

Thought and action are the redeeming features of our lives.

Liberal of cruelty are those who pamper with promises; promisers destroy while they deceive, and the hope they raise is dearly purchased by the dependence that is sequent to disappointment.

Sloth is the torpidity of the mental faculties; the sluggard is a living insensible.

The necessities that exist are in general created by the superfluities that are enjoyed.