Close thine ear against him ...

Close thine ear against him that shall open his mouth secretly against another. If thou receivest not his words, they fly back and wound the reporter. If thou dost receive them, they fly forward and wound the receiver.
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 Johann Kaspar Lavater

Quotes from the same author

Neatness begets order; but from order to taste there is the same difference as from taste to genius, or from love to friendship.
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 Johann Kaspar Lavater
Nothing is so pregnant as cruelty; so multifarious, so rapid, so ever teeming a mother is unknown to the animal kingdom; each of her experiments provokes another and refines upon the last; though always progressive, yet always remote from the end.
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 Johann Kaspar Lavater
Desire is the uneasiness a man finds in himself upon the absence of anything whose present enjoyment carries the idea of delight with it.
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 Johann Kaspar Lavater
Conscience is wiser than science.
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 Johann Kaspar Lavater
I am prejudiced in favor of him who, without impudence, can ask boldly. He has faith in humanity, and faith in himself. No one who is not accustomed to giving grandly can ask nobly and with boldness.
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 Johann Kaspar Lavater