Gotthold Ephraim Lessing Quotes
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It is medicine, not poison, I offer you.
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Let the devil catch you but by a single hair, and you are his forever.
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The gift of prayer is not always at our command.
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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?
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They make glorious shipwreck who are lost in seeking worlds.
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Resist as much as thou wilt; heaven's ways are heaven's ways.
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Yesterday I lived, today I suffer, tomorrow I die; but I still think fondly, today and tomorrow, of yesterday.
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For the will and not the gift makes the giver.
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For me the greatest beauty always lies in the greatest clarity.
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If some things don't make you lose your sense of reason, then you have none to lose.
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A man who does not lose his reason over certain things has none to lose.
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It is not I who die, when I die, but my sin and misery.
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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.
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To look forward to pleasure is also a pleasure.
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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
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Nothing under the sun is ever accidental.
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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!
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The searcher's eye Not seldom finds more than he wished to find.
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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.
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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.
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Pure truth is for God alone.
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To borrow scarce is better than to beg; As lending, lending upon interest, Scarce better is than stealing.
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Nature meant woman to be her masterpiece.
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Nature intended that woman should be her masterpiece.
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Let us be lazy in everything, except in loving and drinking, except in being lazy.
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The real beggar is indeed the true and only king.
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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.
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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.
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Suspicion follows close on mistrust.
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What education is to the individual, revelation is to the whole human race.
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