In each of us there is a little of all of us.


G. C. (Georg Christoph) Lichtenberg

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In each of us there is a little of all of us
GEORGE LICHTENBERG
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Stupidity is also a gift of God, but one mustn't misuse it.
POPE JOHN PAUL II
Humanity should question itself, once more, about the absurd and always unfair phenomenon of war, on...
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Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry a...
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Wars generally do not resolve the problems for which they are fought and therefore... prove ultimate...
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I kiss the soil as if I placed a kiss on the hands of a mother, for the homeland is our earthly moth...
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The vow of celibacy is a matter of keeping one's word to Christ and the Church. a duty and a pro...
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From now on it is only through a conscious choice and through a deliberate policy that humanity can ...
POPE JOHN PAUL II
Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.
POPE JOHN PAUL II
An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie, for an excuse is a lie guarded.
POPE JOHN PAUL II
Love is never defeated, and I could add, the history of Ireland proves it.
POPE JOHN PAUL II
The great danger for family life, in the midst of any society whose idols are pleasure, comfort and ...
POPE JOHN PAUL II
Today, for the first time in history, a Bishop of Rome sets foot on English soil. This fair land, on...
POPE JOHN PAUL II
Pervading nationalism imposes its dominion on man today in many different forms and with an aggressi...
POPE JOHN PAUL II
The historical experience of socialist countries has sadly demonstrated that collectivism does not d...
POPE JOHN PAUL II
To maintain a joyful family requires much from both the parents and the children. Each member of the...
POPE JOHN PAUL II
Young people are threatened... by the evil use of advertising techniques that stimulate the natural ...
POPE JOHN PAUL II
When freedom does not have a purpose, when it does not wish to know anything about the rule of law e...
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You will reciprocally promise love, loyalty and matrimonial honesty. We only want for you this day t...
POPE JOHN PAUL II
The future starts today, not tomorrow.
POPE JOHN PAUL II
The unworthy successor of Peter who desires to benefit from the immeasurable wealth of Christ feels ...
POPE JOHN PAUL II
Social justice cannot be attained by violence. Violence kills what it intends to create.
POPE JOHN PAUL II
Marriage is an act of will that signifies and involves a mutual gift, which unites the spouses and b...
POPE JOHN PAUL II
The United Nations organization has proclaimed 1979 as the Year of the Child. Are the children to re...
POPE JOHN PAUL II
Violence and arms can never resolve the problems of men.
POPE JOHN PAUL II
Have no fear of moving into the unknown. Simply step out fearlessly knowing that I am with you, ther...
POPE JOHN PAUL II
There are people and nations, Mother, that I would like to say to you by name. I entrust them to you...
POPE JOHN PAUL II
I have a sweet tooth for song and music. This is my Polish sin.
POPE JOHN PAUL II
Al-Qur'an is not a book of Science, ‘S-C-I-E-N-C-E’ but a book of Signs ‘S-I-G-N-S
ZAKIR NAIK
These are moments of love and ecstasy. Deeply moving moments when we will fly! Fly together in the a...
AVIJEET DAS
The scars of others should teach us caution.
ST. JEROME
They talk like angels but they live like men.
ST. JEROME
Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues hence, in the soul in which this virtue does not...
SAINT AUGUSTINE
The most High approveth not the gifts of the wicked.
SAINT PATRICK
I see that already in this present world I am exalted above measure by the Lord. And I was not worth...
SAINT PATRICK
He that offereth sacrifice of the goods of the poor is as one that sacrificeth the son in the presen...
SAINT PATRICK
I was freeborn according to the flesh; I am born of a father who was a decurion, but I sold my noble...
SAINT PATRICK
I have had the good fortune through my God that I should never abandon his people whom I have acquir...
SAINT PATRICK
The Lord discovered to me a sense of my unbelief that, though late, I should remember my transgressi...
SAINT PATRICK
Let who will scoff and revile - I will not remain silent; neither will I conceal the signs and wonde...
SAINT PATRICK
I only seek in my old age to perfect that which I had not before thoroughly learned in my youth, bec...
SAINT PATRICK
I have a Creator who knew all things, even before they were made - even me, his poor little child.
SAINT PATRICK
I have vowed to my God to teach the heathen, though I be despised by some.
SAINT PATRICK
No one should ever say that it was my ignorance if I did or showed forth anything however small acco...
SAINT PATRICK
The Lord opened the understanding of my unbelieving heart, so that I should recall my sins.
SAINT PATRICK
It was not any grace in me, but God that put this earnest care into my heart, that I should be one o...
SAINT PATRICK
Sufficient for me is that honour which is not seen of men but is felt in the heart, as faithful is H...
SAINT PATRICK
Before I was humiliated I was like a stone that lies in deep mud, and he who is mighty came and in h...
SAINT PATRICK
I am Patrick, a sinner, most uncultivated and least of all the faithful and despised in the eyes of ...
SAINT PATRICK
The Lord is greater than all: I have said enough.
SAINT PATRICK
Among the many signs of a lively faith and hope we have in eternal life, one of the surest is not be...
SAINT IGNATIUS
I can love a person in this life only insofar as he tries to advance in the praise and service of Go...
SAINT IGNATIUS
Some indeed have tears naturally, when the higher motion of the soul makes itself felt in the lower,...
SAINT IGNATIUS
The principal end both of my father and of myself in the conquest of India... has been the propagati...
SAINT IGNATIUS
We should love the body insofar as it is obedient and helpful to the soul, since the soul, with the ...
SAINT IGNATIUS
We should always be disposed to believe that that which appears white is really black, if the hierar...
SAINT IGNATIUS
It is one thing to be eloquent and charming in profane speech, and another when the one speaking as ...
SAINT IGNATIUS
Remember that bodily exercise, when it is well ordered, as I have said, is also prayer by means of w...
SAINT IGNATIUS
In the light of the Divine Goodness, it seems to me, though others may think differently, that ingra...
SAINT IGNATIUS
Occupy yourself in beholding and bewailing your own imperfections rather than contemplating the impe...
SAINT IGNATIUS
Be generous to the poor orphans and those in need. The man to whom our Lord has been liberal ought n...
SAINT IGNATIUS
Teach us to give and not to count the cost.
SAINT IGNATIUS
In the fallen there is danger of pride and vainglory, since they prefer their own judgment to the ju...
SAINT IGNATIUS
May God our Lord never let me harm anyone when I cannot help him!
SAINT IGNATIUS
True, I am in love with suffering, but I do not know if I deserve the honor.
SAINT IGNATIUS
May the perfect grace and eternal love of Christ our Lord be our never-failing protection and help.
SAINT IGNATIUS
For those who love, nothing is too difficult, especially when it is done for the love of our Lord Je...
SAINT IGNATIUS
If God has given you the world's goods in abundance, it is to help you gain those of Heaven and ...
SAINT IGNATIUS
Knowledge is sometimes superfluous: when we need it, we have it not.
SAINT BERNARD
For every benefit conferred, God is to be praised in his gifts. Otherwise when the time of judgment ...
SAINT BERNARD
Custom turns everything upside down. Give it time, and what can resist its hardening effect? What do...
SAINT BERNARD
Charity never lacks what is her own, all that she needs for her own security. Not alone does she hav...
SAINT BERNARD
I was made a sinner by deriving my being from Adam; I am made just by being washed in the blood of C...
SAINT BERNARD
The impudence of the sinner displeases God as much as the modesty of the penitent gives him pleasure...
SAINT BERNARD
A man who prides himself on being better than his fellow-men thinks it a disgrace if he does not do ...
SAINT BERNARD
Keep to the middle if you wish to keep moderation. The mid way is the safe way. Moderation abides in...
SAINT BERNARD
Humility is a good estate; founded thereon, the whole spiritual edifice grows into a holy temple in ...
SAINT BERNARD
That heart alone is hard which does not shudder at itself for not feeling its hardness.
SAINT BERNARD
There are people who go clad in tunics and have nothing to do with furs, who nevertheless are lackin...
SAINT BERNARD
You wish me to tell you why and how God should be loved. My answer is that God himself is the reason...
SAINT BERNARD
I myself, however wretched I may be, have been occasionally privileged to sit at the feet of the Lor...
SAINT BERNARD
Learn the lesson that, if you are to do the work of a prophet, what you want is not a sceptre, but a...
SAINT BERNARD
Christian, learn from Christ how you ought to love Christ. Learn a love that is tender, wise, strong...
SAINT BERNARD
In truth, opinion may be taken for understanding; understanding cannot be taken for opinion. How so?...
SAINT BERNARD
Sorrow for sin is indeed necessary, but it should not be an endless preoccupation. You must dwell al...
SAINT BERNARD
God removes the sin of the one who makes humble confession, and thereby the devil loses the sovereig...
SAINT BERNARD
We seek for truth in ourselves; in our neighbours, and in its essential nature. We find it first in ...
SAINT BERNARD
I believe though I do not comprehend, and I hold by faith what I cannot grasp with the mind.
SAINT BERNARD
Among irrational animals the love of the offspring and of the parents for each other is extraordinar...
SAINT BASIL
The woman who purposely destroys her unborn child is guilty of murder. With us there is no nice enqu...
SAINT BASIL
There is nothing unpremeditated, nothing neglected by God. His unsleeping eye beholds all things.
SAINT BASIL
We glorify the Holy Ghost together with the Father and the Son, from the conviction that He is not s...
SAINT BASIL
We do not accost a physician as we do any mere nobody; nor a magistrate as we do a private individua...
SAINT BASIL
Indulging in unrestrained and immoderate laughter is a sign of intemperance, of a want of control ov...
SAINT BASIL
Strive to attain to the greater virtues, but do not neglect the lesser ones. Do not make light of a ...
SAINT BASIL
To lovers of the truth, nothing can be put before God and hope in Him.
SAINT BASIL
Do not despise the fish because they are absolutely unable to speak or to reason, but fear lest you ...
SAINT BASIL
By nature, men desire the beautiful.
SAINT BASIL

More G. C. (Georg Christoph) Lichtenberg

We say that someone occupies an official position, whereas it is the official position that occupies...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
There are very many people who read simply to prevent themselves from thinking.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
Do we write books so that they shall merely be read? Don't we also write them for employment in the ...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
A vacuum of ideas affects people differently than a vacuum of air, otherwise readers of books would ...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
People who never have any time on their hands are those who do the least.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
Theologians always try to turn the Bible into a book without common sense.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
As I take up my pen I feel myself so full, so equal to my subject, and see my book so clearly before...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
Nowadays three witty turns of phrase and a lie make a writer.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
The sure conviction that we could if we wanted to is the reason so many good minds are idle.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
Man is a masterpiece of creation if for no other reason than that, all the weight of evidence for de...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
What most clearly characterizes true freedom and its true employment is its misemployment.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
Prejudices are so to speak the mechanical instincts of men: through their prejudices they do without...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
To receive applause for works which do not demand all our powers hinders our advance towards a perfe...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
A man is never more serious than when he praise himself.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
Much can be inferred about a man from his mistress: in her one beholds his weaknesses and his dreams...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
So-called professional mathematicians have, in their reliance on the relative incapacity of the rest...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
As the few adepts in such things well know, universal morality is to be found in little everyday pen...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
Every man has his moral backside which he refrains from showing unless he has to and keeps covered a...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
To err is human also in so far as animals seldom or never err, or at least only the cleverest of the...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
I have remarked very clearly that I am often of one opinion when I am lying down and of another when...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
Man is a gregarious animal and much more so in his mind than in his body. A golden rule; judge men n...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
We accumulate our opinions at an age when our understanding is at its weakest.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
We cannot remember too often that when we observe nature, and especially the ordering of nature, it ...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
We often have need of a profound philosophy to restore to our feelings their original state of innoc...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
If this is philosophy it is at any rate a philosophy that is not in its right mind.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
Once we know our weaknesses they cease to do us any harm.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
I am convinced we do not only love ourselves in others but hate ourselves in others too.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
The fly that does not want to be swatted is safest if it sits on the fly-swat.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
We are obliged to regard many of our original minds as crazy at least until we have become as clever...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
Just as the performance of the vilest and most wicked deeds requires spirit and talent, so even the ...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
I believe that man is in the last resort so free a being that his right to be what he believes himse...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
To grow wiser means to learn to know better and better the faults to which this instrument with whic...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
There are people who believe everything is sane and sensible that is done with a solemn face.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
If you are going to build something in the air it is always better to build castles than houses of c...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
Many things about our bodies would not seem to us so filthy and obscene if we did not have the idea ...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
The proof that man is the noblest of all creatures is that no other creature has ever denied it.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
Nothing can contribute more to peace of soul than the lack of any opinion whatever.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
If moderation is a fault, then indifference is a crime.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
It is in the gift for employing all the vicissitudes of life to one's own advantage and to that of o...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
Rational free spirits are the light brigade who go on ahead and reconnoiter the ground which the hea...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
First there is a time when we believe everything, then for a little while we believe with discrimina...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
With most people disbelief in a thing is founded on a blind belief in some other thing.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
With the majority of people unbelief in one thing is founded on the blind belief in another.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
Delight at having understood a very abstract and obscure system leads most people to believe in the ...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
Some theories are good for nothing except to be argued about.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
A good metaphor is something even the police should keep an eye on.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
With a pen in my hand I have successfully stormed bulwarks from which others armed with sword and ex...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
If another Messiah was born he could hardly do so much good as the printing-press.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
A book is a mirror; if an ass peers into it, you can not expect an apostle to peer out.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
To be content with life -- or to live merrily, rather --all that is required is that we bestow on al...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
There were honest people long before there were Christians and there are, God be praised, still hone...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
Affectation is a very good word when someone does not wish to confess to what he would none the less...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
Ideas too are a life and a world.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
Cautiousness in judgment is nowadays to be recommended to each and every one: if we gained only one ...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
If we make a couple of discoveries here and there we need not believe things will go on like this fo...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
The American who first discovered Columbus made a bad discovery.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
If all mankind were suddenly to practice honesty, many thousands of people would be sure to starve.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
What is the good of drawing conclusions from experience? I don't deny we sometimes draw the right co...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
Of all the inventions of man I doubt whether any was more easily accomplished than that of a Heaven.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
One might call habit a moral friction: something that prevents the mind from gliding over things but...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
There are people who possess not so much genius as a certain talent for perceiving the desires of th...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
If all else fails, the character of a man can be recognized by nothing so surely as by a jest which ...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
That man is the noblest creature may also be inferred from the fact that no other creature has yet c...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
What is called an acute knowledge of human nature is mostly nothing but the observer's own weaknesse...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
It is hardly to be believed how spiritual reflections when mixed with a little physics can hold peop...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
He who is in love with himself has at least this advantage -- he won't encounter many rivals.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
Even truth needs to be clad in new garments if it is to appeal to a new age.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
What I do not like about our definitions of genius is that there is in them nothing of the day of ju...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
Everyone is a genius at least once a year; a real genius has his original ideas closer together.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
A clever child brought up with a foolish one can itself become foolish. Man is so perfectible and co...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
If there were only turnips and potatoes in the world, someone would complain that plants grow the wr...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
Food probably has a very great influence on the condition of men. Wine exercises a more visible infl...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
The journalists have constructed for themselves a little wooden chapel, which they also call the Tem...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
One cannot demand of a scholar that he show himself a scholar everywhere in society, but the whole t...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
People often become scholars for the same reason they become soldiers: simply because they are unfit...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
There is no more important rule of conduct in the world than this: attach yourself as much as you ca...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
The most perfect ape cannot draw an ape; only man can do that; but, likewise, only man regards the a...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
Here take back the stuff that I am, nature, knead it back into the dough of being, make of me a bush...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
The most dangerous untruths are truths slightly distorted.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
The most successful tempters and thus the most dangerous are the deluded deluders.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
Once the good man was dead, one wore his hat and another his sword as he had worn them, a third had ...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
It is almost everywhere the case that soon after it is begotten the greater part of human wisdom is ...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
To do the opposite of something is also a form of imitation, namely an imitation of its opposite.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
A handful of soldiers is always better than a mouthful of arguments.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
Be wary of passing the judgment: obscure. To find something obscure poses no difficulty: elephants a...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
Man is always partial and is quite right to be. Even impartiality is partial.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
If people should ever start to do only what is necessary millions would die of hunger.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
It is a question whether, when we break a murderer on the wheel, we do not fall into the error a chi...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
He who says he hates every kind of flattery, and says it in earnest, certainly does not yet know eve...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
Before we blame we should first see whether we cannot excuse.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
The pleasures of the imagination are as it were only drawings and models which are played with by po...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
We can see nothing whatever of the soul unless it is visible in the expression of the countenance; o...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
It is no great art to say something briefly when, like Tacitus, one has something to say; when one h...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
Astronomy is perhaps the science whose discoveries owe least to chance, in which human understanding...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
Actual aristocracy cannot be abolished by any law: all the law can do is decree how it is to be impa...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
If an angel were ever to tell us anything of his philosophy I believe many propositions would sound ...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
The most heated defenders of a science, who cannot endure the slightest sneer at it, are commonly th...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
There is no greater impediment to progress in the sciences than the desire to see it take place too ...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
It is said that truth comes from the mouths of fools and children: I wish every good mind which feel...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
The greatest events occur without intention playing any part in them; chance makes good mistakes and...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
He was always smoothing and polishing himself, and in the end he became blunt before he was sharp.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
Man loves company, even if it is only that of a smoldering candle.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
Reason now gazes above the realm of the dark but warm feelings as the Alpine peaks do above the clou...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
The noble simplicity in the works of nature only too often originates in the noble shortsightedness ...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
A schoolteacher or professor cannot educate individuals, he educates only species.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
Most subjects at universities are taught for no other purpose than that they may be re-taught when t...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
The great rule: If the little bit you have is nothing special in itself, at least find a way of sayi...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
Good taste is either that which agrees with my taste or that which subjects itself to the rule of re...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
The human tendency to regard little things as important has produced very many great things.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
He who is enamored of himself will at least have the advantage of being inconvenienced by few rivals...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
One is rarely an impulsive innovator after the age of sixty, but one can still be a very fine orderl...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
He was then in his fifty-fourth year, when even in the case of poets reason and passion begin to dis...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
We have no words for speaking of wisdom to the stupid. He who understands the wise is wise already.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
He swallowed a lot of wisdom, but all of it seems to have gone down the wrong way.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
Virtue by premeditation isn't worth much.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
Man can acquire accomplishments or he can become an animal, whichever he wants. God makes the animal...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
The worst thing you can possibly do is worrying and thinking about what you could have done.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
A book is a mirror: if an ape looks into it an apostle is hardly likely to look out.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
To do just the opposite is also a form of imitation.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
With most men, unbelief in one thing springs from blind belief in another.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer t...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
One's first step in wisdom is to question everything - and one's last is to come to terms with every...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
With most people unbelief in one thing is founded upon blind belief in another.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Don't judge a man by his opinions, but what his opinions have made of him.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
What a blessing it would be if we could open and shut our ears as easily as we open and shut our eye...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
There are people who think that everything one does with a serious face is sensible.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The worst thing you can possibly do is worrying and thinking about what you could have done.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The proof that man is the noblest of all creatures is that no other creature has ever denied it.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The human tendency to regard little things as important has produced very many great things.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Perhaps in time the so-called Dark Ages will be thought of as including our own.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
One of the greatest creations of the human mind is the art of reviewing books without having read th...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinion at all.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Judge men not by their opinions, but by what their opinions have made of them.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
He who is in love with himself has at least this advantage - he won't encounter many rivals.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
First there is a time when we believe everything, then for a little while we believe with discrimina...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Everyone is a genius at least once a year; a real genius has his original ideas closer together.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
A book is a mirror; if an ass peers into it, you can not expect an apostle to peer out.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
When a book and a head collide and there is a hollow sound, is it always from the book?
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
What a blessing it would be if we could open and shut our ears as easily as we open and shut our mou...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
An hour-glass is a reminder not only of time's quick flight, but also of the dust to which we must a...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Some men come by the name of genius in the same way as an insect comes by the name of centipede - no...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The man was such an intellectual he was of almost no use.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Nothing is more conductive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
God created man in His own image, says the Bible; philosophers reverse the process: they create God ...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The sure conviction that we could if we wanted to is the reason so many good minds are idle.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The thoughts written on the walls of madhouses by their inmates might be worth publicizing.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
I cannot stop thinking that I died before I was born and that at my death I will return to the same ...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
A book is a mirror: If an ass peers into it, you can't expect an apostle to look out
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
One might call habit a moral friction: something that prevents the mind from gliding over things but...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Every man has his moral backside which he refrains from showing unless he has to and keeps covered a...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
What most clearly characterizes true freedom and its true employment is its misemployment.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
It is we who are the measure of what is strange and miraculous: if we sought a universal measure the...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The noble simplicity in the works of nature only too often originates in the noble shortsightedness ...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Many a man who is willing to be shot for his belief in a miracle would have doubted, had he been pre...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
You can make a good living from soothsaying, but not from truthsaying
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
As nations improve, so do their gods
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Most men of education are more superstitious than they admit - nay, than they think
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Those who never have time do least
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
A clever child brought up with a foolish one can itself become foolish. Man is so perfectible and co...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
It often takes more courage to change one's opinion than to stick to it.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Man loves company even if only that of a small burning candle
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
A good metaphor is something even the police should keep an eye on.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Jedermann sollte wenigstens soviel Philosophie und schöne Wissenschaften studieren, als nötig ist,...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The most dangerous of all falsehoods is a slightly distorted truth
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Much can be inferred about a man from his mistress: in her one beholds his weaknesses and his dreams...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Man loves company even if it is only that of a small burning candle
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
To read means to borrow; to create out of one's readings is paying off one's debts
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The most dangerous untruths are truths moderately distorted.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
If moderation is a fault then indifference is a crime
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
To do just the opposite is also a form of imitation
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is that they must change if...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
After all, is our idea of God anything more than personified incomprehensibility?

{Said i...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Aujourd'hui, on cherche partout à répandre le savoir; qui sait si, dans quelques siècles, il n'y ...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The drive to propagate our race has also propagated a lot of other things
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
One's first step in wisdom is to question everything - and one's last is to come to terms with every...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
We say that someone occupies an official position, whereas it is the official position that occupies...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
It not seldom happens that in the purposeless rovings and wanderings of the imagination we hunt down...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Prejudices are so to speak the mechanical instincts of men: through their prejudices they do without...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The most dangerous of all falsehoods is a slightly distorted truth.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The highest level than can be reached by a mediocre but experienced mind is a talent for uncovering ...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
In the weak, lack of strength to defend oneself passes over into complaining. This can be observed i...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
There are people who possess not so much genius as a certain talent for perceiving the desires of th...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
For the loss of those we have loved there is no alleviation but time and carefully and rationally ch...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
He who is enamoured of himself will at least have the advantage of being inconvenienced by few rival...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Sometimes we know a person better than we can say, or at least than we do say.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
En la naturaleza no hay palabras, solamente iniciales. Al releer las nuevas "palabras", descubrimos ...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Nothing is more inimical to the progress of science than the belief that we know what we do not yet ...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
It requires no especially great talent to write in such a way that another will be very hard put to ...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
We say that someone occupies an official position, whereas it is the official position that occupies...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
It makes a great difference by what path we come to a knowledge of certain things. If we begin in ou...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Nothing makes one old so quickly as the ever-present thought that one is growing older
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Every condition of the soul has its own sign and expression...So you will see how hard it is to seem...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Just as there are polysyllabic words that say very little, so there are also monosyllabic words of i...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG