Gotthold Ephraim Lessing Quotes - Page 3

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

The gift of prayer is not always at our command.

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

I know not whether there exists such a thing as a coin stamped with a pair of pinions; but I wish this were the device which monarchs put upon their dollars and ducats, to show that riches make to themselves wings, and fly away.

It's easier to swoon in pious dreams Than do good actions.

What education is to the individual, revelation is to the whole human race.

Pure truth is for God alone.

They make glorious shipwreck who are lost in seeking worlds.

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

Where wildness and disorder are visible in the dance, there Satan, death and all kinds of mischief are likewise upon the floor. For this reason I could wish that the dance of death were painted on the walls of all ball-rooms in order to warn the dancers, not by the levity of their deportment, to provoke the God of righteousness to visit them with a sudden judgment.

Suspicion follows close on mistrust.

Well was it said by a man of sagacity that dancing was a sort of privileged and reputable folly, and that the best way to be convinced of this was to close the ears and judge of it by the eyes alone.

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.