Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (German Writer)

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–81) was a German philosopher, dramatist, critic, and writer on philosophy and aesthetics. One of the most talented representatives of the German Enlightenment, he helped launch the “Sturm und Drang” (“Storm and Stress”) literary and artistic movement.

Born in Kamenz, Saxony, Lessing studied theology at Leipzig. He then relocated to Berlin and made a living by writing literary criticisms in the liberal German newspaper Vossische Zeitung.

In 1751, Lessing went to Wittenberg, took his Master’s degree, and produced a series of justifications of such defamed or forgotten writers as the Italian polymath Gerolamo Cardano and the Latin epigrammist Lemnius. Lessing returned to Berlin in 1755 and produced his classic tragedy Miss Sara Sampson (1755.)

Lessing is credited with helping free German drama from the impact of classical and French models. His critical essays in Briefe, die neueste Literatur betreffend (1758, ‘Letters Concerning the Latest Literature’) and his Laocoön (1766) stimulated German works of literature. He opposed conservative dogmatism and hypocrisy while upholding religious and intellectual tolerance.

Lessing’s major dramatic work is the comedy Minna von Barnhelm (1767; The Disbanded Officer, 1786.) Between 1774 and 1778, he published the Wolfenbüttelsche Fragmente eines Ungenannten (‘Anonymous Fragments from Wolfenbüttel,’) a rationalist attack on orthodox Christianity. Even though theologian Hermann Reimarus wrote this work, it was commonly attributed to Lessing and incited a storm of repudiations. The best of Lessing’s counter-attacks were Anti-Goeze (1778) and the dramatic poem, Nathan der Weise (1779; Nathan the Wise, 1868,) a magnificent appeal for toleration.

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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.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
Topics: Simplicity

Borrowing is not much better than begging; just as lending with interest is not much better than stealing.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

Would that we could at once paint with the eyes!—In the long way from the eye, through the arm, to the pencil, how much is lost!
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
Topics: Art, Painting

Yesterday I lived, today I suffer, tomorrow I die; but I still think fondly, today and tomorrow, of yesterday.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
Topics: Reflection

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
Topics: Dancing

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!
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
Topics: Pleasure

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. For it is not by the possession, but the search after truth that he enlarges his power, wherein alone consists his ever-increasing perfection.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
Topics: Effort

The lion is ashamed, it’s true, when he hunts with the fox.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
Topics: Friendship

The superstition in which we grew up,
Though we may recognize it, does not lose
Its power over us—Not all are free
Who make mock of their chains.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
Topics: Superstition

Where wildness and disorder are visible in the dance, there Satan, death, and all kinds of mischief are likewise on the floor.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
Topics: Dancing

My God, there go the chariots in which thou ridest forth to inspect thy fields, gardens, meadows, forests, and plains.—They are the curtains, which, at thy good pleasure, thou drawest as a covering over the plants, that they may not be withered and destroyed by the heat; and not seldom are they the arsenal in which thou keepest thine artillery of thunder and lightning, at times to strike the children of men with reverential awe, or inflict on them some great punishment.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

A heretic is a man who sees with his own eyes.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

My God, give me neither poverty nor riches, but whatsoever it may be thy will to give, give me, with it, a heart that knows humbly to acquiesce in what is thy will.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
Topics: Contentment

How can such deep-imprinted images sleep in us at times, till a word, a sound, awake them?
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
Topics: Memory

It is the will, and not the gift that makes the giver.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
Topics: Gifts

A blush is a sign that nature hangs out, to show where chastity and honor dwell.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

A single grateful thought toward heaven is the most perfect prayer.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
Topics: Sin, Perfect, Prayer, Gratitude, War

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