Gotthold Ephraim Lessing Quotes - Page 2

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.

The true vagrant is the only king above all comparison.

It is not I who die, when I die, but my sin and misery.

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

Joy makes us giddy, dizzy.

What can the Creator see with greater pleasure than a happy creature?

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.

Nothing under the sun is ever accidental.

How can such deep-imprinted images sleep in us at times, till a word, a sound, awake them?

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

Nature intended that woman should be her masterpiece.

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

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?

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!

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

With a clear sky, a bright sun, and a gentle breeze, you will have friends in plenty; but let fortune frown, and the firmament be overcast, and then your friends will prove like the strings of the lute, of which you will tighten ten before you find one that will bear the stretch and keep the pitch.

As the stag which the huntsman has hit flies through bush and brake, over stock and stone, thereby exhausting his strength but not expelling the deadly bullet from his body; so does experience show that they who have troubled consciences run from place to place, but carry with them wherever they go their dangerous wounds.

My God, grant that my bounty may be a clear and transparent river, flowing from pure charity, and uncontaminated by self-love, ambition, or interest. Thanks are due not to me, but Thee, from whom all I possess is derived. And what are the paltry gifts for which my neighbor forgets to thank me, compared with the immense blessings for which I have so often forgotten to be grateful to Thee!

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

It is medicine, not poison, I offer you.

The end-purpose of all art is enjoyment!

A man who does not lose his reason over certain things has none to lose.

But how many moments are already past! Ah! who thinks of those that are past?

Resist as much as thou wilt; heaven's ways are heaven's ways.

The real beggar is indeed the true and only king.