Gotthold Ephraim Lessing Quotes

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.

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

If the advice of a fool for once happens to be good, it requires a wise man to carry it out.

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

The end-purpose of all art is enjoyment!

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!

Did the Almighty, holding in his right hand truth, and in his left hand search after truth, deign to proffer me the one I might prefer, in all humility, but without hesitation, I should request search after truth.

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.

The superstition in which we were brought up never loses its power over us, even after we understand it.

Pure truth is for God alone.

It is not children only that one feeds with fairy tales.

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

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

For me the greatest beauty always lies in the greatest clarity.

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

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

The search for truth is more precious than its possession.

When the heart dares to speak, it needs no preparation.

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

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.

Nature intended that woman should be her masterpiece.

The gift of prayer is not always at our command.

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

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.

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.

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

Nothing under the sun is ever accidental.

It is medicine, not poison, I offer you.

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

Absolute truth belongs to Thee alone.

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!

Let us be lazy in everything, except in loving and drinking, except in being lazy.

He who doesn't lose his wits over certain things has no wits to lose.

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

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.

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

The true vagrant is the only king above all comparison.

A heretic is a man who sees with his own eyes

The more we see the more we must be able to imagine, and the more we imagine, the more we must think we see.

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?

The most agreeable of all companions is a simple, frank man, without any high pretensions to an oppressive greatness; one who loves life, and understands the use of it; obliging alike at all hours; above all, of a golden temper and steadfast as an anchor. For such an one we gladly exchange the greatest genius, the most brilliant wit, the profoundest thinker.

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.

A single grateful thought toward heaven is the most perfect prayer.

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.