It is almost everywhere the case that soon after it is begotten the greater part of human wisdom is laid to rest in repositories.


Georg C. Lichtenberg

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Every man has his moral backside which he refrains from showing unless he has to and keeps covered a...
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The Greeks possessed a knowledge of human nature we seem hardly able to attain to without passing th...
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Men still have to be governed by deception.
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The most dangerous untruths are truths slightly distorted.
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With most people disbelief in a thing is founded on a blind belief in some other thing.
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Man is a masterpiece of creation if for no other reason than that, all the weight of evidence for de...
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He who says he hates every kind of flattery, and says it in earnest, certainly does not yet know eve...
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The most successful tempters and thus the most dangerous are the deluded deluders.
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Be wary of passing the judgment: obscure. To find something obscure poses no difficult, elephants an...
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One might call habit a moral friction: something that prevents the mind from gliding over things but...
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Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit.
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If all else fails, the character of a man can be recognized by nothing so surely as by a jest which ...
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Just as the performance of the vilest and most wicked deeds requires spirit and talent, so even the ...
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Much can be inferred about a man from his mistress: in her one beholds his weaknesses and his dreams...
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To receive applause for works which do not demand all our powers hinders our advance towards a perfe...
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Virtue by premeditation isn't worth much.
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Prejudices are so to speak the mechanical instincts of men: through their prejudices they do without...
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There exists a species of transcendental ventriloquism by means of which men can be made to believe ...
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Doubt must be no more than vigilance, otherwise it can become dangerous.
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With a pen in my hand I have successfully stormed bulwarks from which others armed with sword and ex...
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Nothing makes one old so quickly as the ever-present thought that one is growing older.
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We say that someone occupies an official position, whereas it is the official position that occupies...
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There are very many people who read simply to prevent themselves from thinking.
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Do we write books so that they shall merely be read? Don't we also write them for employment in the ...
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A vacuum of ideas affects people differently than a vacuum of air, otherwise readers of books would ...
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People who never have any time on their hands are those who do the least.
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Theologians always try to turn the Bible into a book without common sense.
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As I take up my pen I feel myself so full, so equal to my subject, and see my book so clearly before...
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Nowadays three witty turns of phrase and a lie make a writer.
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The sure conviction that we could if we wanted to is the reason so many good minds are idle.
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I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they...
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Man is a masterpiece of creation if for no other reason than that, all the weight of evidence for de...
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What most clearly characterizes true freedom and its true employment is its misemployment.
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Prejudices are so to speak the mechanical instincts of men: through their prejudices they do without...
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To receive applause for works which do not demand all our powers hinders our advance towards a perfe...
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A man is never more serious than when he praise himself.
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Much can be inferred about a man from his mistress: in her one beholds his weaknesses and his dreams...
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So-called professional mathematicians have, in their reliance on the relative incapacity of the rest...
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As the few adepts in such things well know, universal morality is to be found in little everyday pen...
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Every man has his moral backside which he refrains from showing unless he has to and keeps covered a...
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To err is human also in so far as animals seldom or never err, or at least only the cleverest of the...
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I have remarked very clearly that I am often of one opinion when I am lying down and of another when...
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Man is a gregarious animal and much more so in his mind than in his body. A golden rule; judge men n...
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We accumulate our opinions at an age when our understanding is at its weakest.
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We cannot remember too often that when we observe nature, and especially the ordering of nature, it ...
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We often have need of a profound philosophy to restore to our feelings their original state of innoc...
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If this is philosophy it is at any rate a philosophy that is not in its right mind.
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Once we know our weaknesses they cease to do us any harm.
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In each of us there is a little of all of us.
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I am convinced we do not only love ourselves in others but hate ourselves in others too.
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The fly that does not want to be swatted is safest if it sits on the fly-swat.
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We are obliged to regard many of our original minds as crazy at least until we have become as clever...
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Just as the performance of the vilest and most wicked deeds requires spirit and talent, so even the ...
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I believe that man is in the last resort so free a being that his right to be what he believes himse...
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To grow wiser means to learn to know better and better the faults to which this instrument with whic...
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There are people who believe everything is sane and sensible that is done with a solemn face.
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If you are going to build something in the air it is always better to build castles than houses of c...
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Many things about our bodies would not seem to us so filthy and obscene if we did not have the idea ...
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The proof that man is the noblest of all creatures is that no other creature has ever denied it.
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Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit.
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Nothing can contribute more to peace of soul than the lack of any opinion whatever.
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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...
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First there is a time when we believe everything, then for a little while we believe with discrimina...
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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 ...
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Some theories are good for nothing except to be argued about.
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A good metaphor is something even the police should keep an eye on.
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With a pen in my hand I have successfully stormed bulwarks from which others armed with sword and ex...
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If another Messiah was born he could hardly do so much good as the printing-press.
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A book is a mirror; if an ass peers into it, you can not expect an apostle to peer out.
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To be content with life -- or to live merrily, rather --all that is required is that we bestow on al...
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There were honest people long before there were Christians and there are, God be praised, still hone...
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A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.
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Affectation is a very good word when someone does not wish to confess to what he would none the less...
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Ideas too are a life and a world.
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Cautiousness in judgment is nowadays to be recommended to each and every one: if we gained only one ...
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If we make a couple of discoveries here and there we need not believe things will go on like this fo...
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The American who first discovered Columbus made a bad discovery.
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If all mankind were suddenly to practice honesty, many thousands of people would be sure to starve.
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What is the good of drawing conclusions from experience? I don't deny we sometimes draw the right co...
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Of all the inventions of man I doubt whether any was more easily accomplished than that of a Heaven.
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One might call habit a moral friction: something that prevents the mind from gliding over things but...
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There are people who possess not so much genius as a certain talent for perceiving the desires of th...
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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...
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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...
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The journalists have constructed for themselves a little wooden chapel, which they also call the Tem...
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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