A Quote by Johann Kaspar Lavater
He who seldom speaks, and with one calm well-timed word can strike dumb the loquacious, is a genius or a hero.
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I regret that I must so continually use the word genius, as if that should apply only to a caste as well defined from those below as income-tax payers are from the untaxed. The word genius was very probably invented by a man who had small claims on it himself; greater men would have understood better what to be a genius really was, and probably they would have come to see that the word could be applied to most people. Goethe said that perhaps only a genius is able to understand a genius.
The quality of decision is like the well-timed swoop of a falcon which enables it to strike and destroy its victim.
Light griefs are loquacious, but the great are dumb.
I'll call somebody 'dumb' or 'stupid' if they make a dumb or stupid play. I don't know any other word for it, and if they don't like the word, that's too bad.
Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought. Strike against manufacturing shrapnel and gas bombs and all other tools of murder. Strike against preparedness that means death and misery to millions of human beings. Be not dumb, obedient slaves in an army of destruction. Be heroes in an army of construction.
Besides, our action on each other, good as well as evil, is so incidental and at random, that we can seldom hear the acknowledgments of any person who would thank us for a benefit, without some shame and humiliation. We can rarely strike a direct stroke, but must be content with an oblique one; we seldom have the satisfaction of yielding a direct benefit, which is directly received.
The wild force of genius has often been fated by Nature to be finally overcome by quiet strength. The volcano sends up its red bolt with terrific force, as if it would strike the stars; but the calm, resistless hand of gravitation seizes it and brings it to the earth.
A hero is someone who stands in the community and speaks their hopes and speaks their passion. That's almost an act of heroism nowadays because higher consciousness is so trivialized.
Before a man speaks it is always safe to assume that he is a fool. After he speaks, it is seldom necessary to assume it.
Well Socrates is 70 when he dies. He's been allowed to philosophise freely in the city for almost 50 years. He clearly was - genius is an overused word - but he clearly did have something of the genius about him.
The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.
I love a blouse that's dumb. I love to use the word 'dumb.' It's not knowing, and the word 'blouse' is so out of fashion that I love it - 'a blouse that's dumb.'
Those who succeed in an outstanding way seldom do so before the age of 40. More often, they do not strike their real pace until they are well beyond the age of 50.
When God speaks, when the Word speaks, energy is translated into matter. What is atomic fission? It is matter translated back into energy—poof! it disappears. Creation began with energy. In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God. The Word was God.
John Kerry speaks French fluently. Democrats are saying he's one in a million. A war hero who speaks French, isn't it more like one in a trillion?
Burning logs can carry on quite a conversation! ... Have you ever heard apple wood talking? It's the most loquacious of all. You really can't get a word in edgeways.
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