Johann Kaspar Lavater Honesty Quotations

The more honesty a man has, the less he affects the air of a saint.

The worst of all knaves are those who can mimic their former honesty.

He who prorogues the honesty of today till to-morrow will probably prorogue his to-morrows to eternity.

He who freely praises what he means to purchase, and he who enumerates the faults of what he means to sell, may set up a partnership with honesty.

An entirely honest man, in the severe sense of the word, exists no more than an entirely dishonest knave; the best and the worst are only approximations to those qualities. Who are those that never contradict themselves? yet honesty never contradicts itself. Who are they that always contradict themselves? yet knavery is mere self-contradiction. Thus the knowledge of man determines not the things themselves, but their proportions, the quantum of congruities and incongruities.