Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann Quotes

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

The rich and luxurious may claim an exclusive right to those pleasures which are capable of being purchased by pelf, in which the mind has no enjoyment, and which only afford a temporary relief to languor by steeping the senses in forgetfulness; but in the precious pleasures of the intellect, so easily accessible by all mankind, the great have no exclusive privilege; for such enjoyments are only to be procured by our own industry.

One ought to love society, if he wishes to enjoy solitude. It is a social nature that solitude works upon with the most various power. If one is misanthropic, and betakes himself to loneliness that he may get away from hateful things, solitude is a silent emptiness to him.

The man whose bosom neither riches nor luxury nor grandeur can render happy may, with a book in his hand, forget all his torments under the friendly shade of every tree; and experience pleasures as infinite as they are varied, as pure as they are lasting, as lively as they are unfading, and as compatible with every public duty as they are contributory to private happiness.

The sluggard is a living insensible.

Truth lies in a small compass! The Aristotelians say, all truth is contained in Aristotle, in one place or another. Galileo makes Simplicius say so, but shows the absurdity of that speech by answering all truth is contained in a lesser compass, namely, in the alphabet.

Economy is an excellent lure to betray people into expense.

Time is never more misspent than while we declaim against the want of it; all our actions are then tinctured with peevishness. The yoke of life is certainly the least oppressive when we carry it with good-humor; and in the shades of rural retirement, when we have once acquired a resolution to pass our hours with economy, sorrowful lamentations on the subject of time misspent and business neglected never torture the mind.

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

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.

Be not so bigoted to any custom as to worship it at the expense of truth.

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

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.

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.

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

Surmise is the gossamer that malice blows on fair reputations, the corroding dew that destroys the choice blossom. Surmise is primarily the squint of suspicion, and suspicion is established before it is confirmed.

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

Age is suspicious but is not itself often suspected.

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

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

Novels do not force their fair readers to sin, they only instruct them how to sin; the consequences of which are fully detailed, and not in a way calculated to seduce any but weak but weak minds; few of their heroines are happily disposed of.

The lust of dominion innovates so imperceptibly that we become complete despots before our wanton abuse of power is perceived; the tyranny first exercised in the nursery is exhibited in various shapes and degrees in every stage of our existence.

When soured by disappointment we must endeavor to pursue some fixed and pleasing course of study, that there may be no blank leaf in our book of life. Painful and disagreeable ideas vanish from the mind that can fix its attention upon any subject.

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

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.

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.

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.

Nobility should be elective, not hereditary.

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.

Books afford the surest relief in the most melancholy moments.

The purse of the patient often protracts his case.

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

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

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.

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

Who conquers indolence conquers all other hereditary sins.

Comedians are not usually actors, but imitations of actors.

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

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

The human mind, in proportion as it is deprived of external resources, sedulously labors to find within itself the means of happiness, learns to rely with confidence on its own exertions, and gains with greater certainty the power of being happy.

Many good qualities are not sufficient to balance a single want - the want of money.