Top 335 Quotes & Sayings by Georg C. Lichtenberg
Explore popular quotes and sayings by a German scientist Georg C. Lichtenberg.
Last updated on November 25, 2024.
The most perfect ape cannot draw an ape; only man can do that; but, likewise, only man regards the ability to do this as a sign of superiority.
Actual aristocracy cannot be abolished by any law: all the law can do is decree how it is to be imparted and who is to acquire it.
The most dangerous untruths are truths slightly distorted.
Never undertake anything for which you wouldn't have the courage to ask the blessings of heaven.
God created man in His own image, says the Bible; philosophers reverse the process: they create God in theirs.
Once we know our weaknesses they cease to do us any harm.
We accumulate our opinions at an age when our understanding is at its weakest.
Sickness is mankind's greatest defect.
Virtue by premeditation isn't worth much.
Nothing makes one old so quickly as the ever-present thought that one is growing older.
Every man has his moral backside which he refrains from showing unless he has to and keeps covered as long as possible with the trousers of decorum.
Men still have to be governed by deception.
The fly that doesn't want to be swatted is most secure when it lights on the fly-swatter.
We say that someone occupies an official position, whereas it is the official position that occupies him.
The sure conviction that we could if we wanted to is the reason so many good minds are idle.
One might call habit a moral friction: something that prevents the mind from gliding over things but connects it with them and makes it hard for it to free itself from them.
If all else fails, the character of a man can be recognized by nothing so surely as by a jest which he takes badly.
There is no greater impediment to progress in the sciences than the desire to see it take place too quickly.
With a pen in my hand I have successfully stormed bulwarks from which others armed with sword and excommunication have been repulsed.
Just as we outgrow a pair of trousers, we outgrow acquaintances, libraries, principles, etc., at times before they're worn out and times - and this is the worst of all - before we have new ones.
If you are going to build something in the air it is always better to build castles than houses of cards.
What is called an acute knowledge of human nature is mostly nothing but the observer's own weaknesses reflected back from others.
Nothing can contribute more to peace of soul than the lack of any opinion whatever.
Perhaps in time the so-called Dark Ages will be thought of as including our own.
A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.
Man loves company - even if it is only that of a small burning candle.
There are very many people who read simply to prevent themselves from thinking.
To be content with life or to live merrily, rather all that is required is that we bestow on all things only a fleeting, superficial glance; the more thoughtful we become the more earnest we grow.
One must judge men not by their opinions, but by what their opinions have made of them.
There exists a species of transcendental ventriloquism by means of which men can be made to believe that something said on earth comes from Heaven.
We have no words for speaking of wisdom to the stupid. He who understands the wise is wise already.
Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together.
I believe that man is in the last resort so free a being that his right to be what he believes himself to be cannot be contested.
A handful of soldiers is always better than a mouthful of arguments.
To err is human also in so far as animals seldom or never err, or at least only the cleverest of them do so.
It is in the gift for employing all the vicissitudes of life to one's own advantage and to that of one's craft that a large part of genius consists.
To do the opposite of something is also a form of imitation, namely an imitation of its opposite.
He who is in love with himself has at least this advantage - he won't encounter many rivals.
I am convinced we do not only love ourselves in others but hate ourselves in others too.
What is the good of drawing conclusions from experience? I don't deny we sometimes draw the right conclusions, but don't we just as often draw the wrong ones?
It is a question whether, when we break a murderer on the wheel, we do not fall into the error a child makes when it hits the chair it has bumped into.
Delight at having understood a very abstract and obscure system leads most people to believe in the truth of what it demonstrates.
It is almost everywhere the case that soon after it is begotten the greater part of human wisdom is laid to rest in repositories.
Doubt must be no more than vigilance, otherwise it can become dangerous.
Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinion at all.
Man is a masterpiece of creation if for no other reason than that, all the weight of evidence for determinism notwithstanding, he believes he has free will.
With prophecies the commentator is often a more important man than the prophet.
Prejudices are so to speak the mechanical instincts of men: through their prejudices they do without any effort many things they would find too difficult to think through to the point of resolving to do them.
We are obliged to regard many of our original minds as crazy at least until we have become as clever as they are.
Much can be inferred about a man from his mistress: in her one beholds his weaknesses and his dreams.
The American who first discovered Columbus made a bad discovery.
We cannot remember too often that when we observe nature, and especially the ordering of nature, it is always ourselves alone we are observing.
Even truth needs to be clad in new garments if it is to appeal to a new age.
A book is a mirror: if an ape looks into it an apostle is hardly likely to look out.
Nowadays three witty turns of phrase and a lie make a writer.
I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better.
Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit.
With most people disbelief in a thing is founded on a blind belief in some other thing.
The human tendency to regard little things as important has produced very many great things.
That man is the noblest creature may also be inferred from the fact that no other creature has yet contested this claim.
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