Gotthold Ephraim Lessing Quotes - Page 3

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

  Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

  Believe, Hero, Demigods

  Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1961). “Laocoön: Nathan the Wise ; Minna von Barnhelm”

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• The gift of prayer is not always at our command.

  Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

  Prayer, Command

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

  Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

  Prayer, Grateful, Perfect

  Minna von Barnhelm act 2, sc. 7 (1767)

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• 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.

  Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

  Wings, Gold, Wish

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

  Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

  Dream, Action, Goodness

  Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1991). “Nathan the Wise, Minna Von Barnhelm, and Other Plays and Writings”, p.185, A&C Black

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

  Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

  Race, Individual, Revelations

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• Pure truth is for God alone.

  Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

  Truth, Truth Is, Pure

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

  Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

  Stealing, Lending, Interest

  Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Kuno Fischer (1867). “Nathan the Wise: A Dramatic Poem”, p.90

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• They make glorious shipwreck who are lost in seeking worlds.

  Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

  World, Lost, Shipwreck

  Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1871). “Nathan the Wise: A Dramatic Poem”, p.8

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• 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.

  Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

  Wall, Order, Dancing

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• Suspicion follows close on mistrust.

  Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

  Mistrust, Suspicion

  "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations" by Jehiel Keeler Hoyt, "Nathan der Weise", (pp. 771-772), 1922.

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• 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.

  Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

  Eye, Men, Judging

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• 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.

  Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

  Lending, Begging, Borrowing

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