Gotthold Ephraim Lessing famous quotes

For me the greatest beauty always lies in the greatest clarity.
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Beauty #Lying #Clarity

The search for truth is more precious than its possession.
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Truth #Curiosity #Statistics

A heretic is a man who sees with his own eyes
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Eye #Men #Heretic

The true value of man is not determined by his possession, supposed or real, of Truth, but rather by his sincere exertion to get to the Truth. It is not possession of Truth by which he extends his powers and in which his ever-growing perfectability is to be found. Possession makes one passive, indolent and proud. If God were to hold all Truth concealed in his right hand, and in his left only the steady and diligent drive for Truth, albeit with the proviso that I would always and forever err in the process, and to offer me the choice, I would with all humility take the left hand.
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Real #Humility #Men

What education is to the individual man, revelation is to the human race. Education is revelation coming to the individual man, and revelation is education that has come, and is still coming to the human race.
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Education #Men #Race

Let the devil catch you but by a single hair, and you are his forever.
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Hair #Forever #Devil

Yesterday I lived, today I suffer, tomorrow I die; but I still think fondly, today and tomorrow, of yesterday.
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Thinking #Yesterday #Suffering

I, who ne'erWent for myself a begging, go a borrowing,And that for others. Borrowing's much the sameAs begging; just as lending upon usuryIs much the same as thieving.
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Lending #Begging #Borrowing

It's easier to swoon in pious dreams Than do good actions.
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Dream #Action #Goodness

Pleasures, riches, honor and joy are sure to have care, disgrace, adversity and affliction in their train. There is no pleasure without pain, no joy without sorrow. O the folly of expecting lasting felicity in a vale of tears, or a paradise in a ruined world.
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Pain #Failure #Adversity

It is not children only that one feeds with fairy tales.
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Children #Fairy Tale #Fairy

Absolute truth belongs to Thee alone.
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Truth Is #Thee #Absolute Truth

It is not the truth that a man possesses, or believes that he possesses, but the earnest effort which he puts forward to reach the truth, which constitutes the worth of a man
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Believe #Men #Effort

The most deadly fruit is borne by the hatred which one grafts on an extinguished friendship
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Hatred #Fruit

Would that we could at once paint with the eyes! In the long way from the eye through the arm to the pencil, how much is lost!
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Eye #Long #Arms

The more we see the more we must be able to imagine, and the more we imagine, the more we must think we see.
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Thinking #Able #Fantasy

He who doesn't lose his wits over certain things has no wits to lose.
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Tongue #Certain #Wit

The lion is ashamed, it's true, when he hunts with the fox.
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Lions #Foxes #Ashamed

Borrowing is not much better than begging.
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Begging #Borrowing

The real beggar is indeed the true and only king.
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Kings #Real #Beggar

A blush is the sign which Nature hangs out to show where chastity and honor dwell.
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Honor #Chastity #Shows

To borrow scarce is better than to beg; As lending, lending upon interest, Scarce better is than stealing.
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Stealing #Lending #Interest

Ein einziger dankbarer Gedanke gen Himmel ist das vollkommenste Gebet. One single grateful thought raised to heaven is the most perfect prayer.
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Prayer #Grateful #Perfect

A single grateful thought toward heaven is the most perfect prayer.
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Prayer #Grateful #Perfect

Nothing under the sun is accidental, least of all that of which the intention is so clearly evident.
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Sun #Intention

Nature meant woman to be her masterpiece.
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Women #Masterpiece

The superstition in which we grew up, Though we may recognize it, does not lose Its power over us.-Not all are free Who make mock of their chains.
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Doe #May #Superstitions

When the heart dares to speak, it needs no preparation.
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Heart #Preparation #Needs

Let us be lazy in everything, except in loving and drinking, except in being lazy.
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Drinking #Drunk #Lazy

Why should not every individual man have existed more than once upon this world? Why should I not come back as often as I am capable of acquiring fresh knowledge? Is this hypothesis so laughable merely because it is the oldest? Because the human understanding, before the sophistries of the schools had dissipated and debilitated it, lighted upon it at once?
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#School #Men #Understanding

If some things don't make you lose your sense of reason, then you have none to lose.
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Reason

The searcher's eye Not seldom finds more than he wished to find.
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Eye #Perception #Searchers

We moderns do not believe in demigods, but our smallest hero we expect to feel and act as a demigod.
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Believe #Hero #Demigods

To look forward to pleasure is also a pleasure.
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Looks #Pleasure

Who cannot resolve upon a moment's notice To live his own life, he forever lives A slave to others.
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Forever #Moments #Slave

Joy makes us giddy, dizzy.
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Joy #Dizzy #Giddy

Suspicion follows close on mistrust.
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Mistrust #Suspicion

For the will and not the gift makes the giver.
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#Giver

They make glorious shipwreck who are lost in seeking worlds.
-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#World #Lost #Shipwreck