Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann Quotes

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

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

In fame's temple there is always a niche to be found for rich dunces, importunate scoundrels, or successful butchers of the human race.

Who conquers indolence conquers all other hereditary sins.

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.

Silence is the safest response for all the contradiction that arises from impertinence, vulgarity, or envy.

Idlers cannot even find time to be idle, or the industrious to be at leisure. We must always be doing or suffering

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

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

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.

Comedians are not usually actors, but imitations of actors.

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

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.

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

Gambling houses are temples where the most sordid and turbulent passions contend; there no spectator can be indifferent. A card or a small square of ivory interests more than the loss of an empire, or the ruin of an unoffending group of infants, and their nearest relatives.

Never suffer the prejudice of the eye to determine the heart.

The ill usage of every minute is a new record against us in heaven.

Silence is a trick when it imposes. Pedants and scholars, churchmen and physicians, abound in silent pride.

There appears to exist a greater desire to live long than to live well! Measure by man's desires, he cannot live long enough; measure by his good deeds, and he has not lived long enough; measure by his evil deeds, and he has lived too long.

The weak may be joked out of anything but their weakness.

By fools, knaves fatten; by bigots, priests are well clothed; every knave finds a gull.

'We only have two things to worry about...... One that things will never get back to normal And two that they already have!' Open your mouth and purse cautiously, and your stock of wealth and reputation shall, at least in repute, be great.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Egotism is more like an offense, than a crime; though it is allowable to speak of yourself, provided nothing is advanced in favor; but I cannot help suspecting that those who abuse themselves are, in reality, angling for approbation.

Leisure, the highest happiness upon earth, is seldom enjoyed with perfect satisfaction, except in solitude. Indolence and indifference do not always afford leisure; for true leisure is frequently found in that interval of relaxation which divides a painful duty from an agreeable recreation; a toilsome business from the more agreeable occupations of literature and philosophy.

Profound meditation in solitude and silence frequently exalts the mind above its natural tone, fires the imagination, produces the most refined and sublime conceptions. The soul then tastes the purest and most refined delight, and almost loses the idea of existence in the intellectual pleasure it receives. The mind on every motion darts through space into eternity; and raised, in its free enjoyment of its powers by its own enthusiasm, strengthens itself in the habitude of contemplating the noblest subjects, and of adopting the most heroic pursuits.

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

Thought and action are the redeeming features of our lives.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

The purse of the patient often protracts his case.

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 sluggard is a living insensible.

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.

Troops of furies march in the drunkard's triumph.

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

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

Nobility should be elective, not hereditary.

The necessities that exist are in general created by the superfluities that are enjoyed.