FastSaying

One of the greatest creations of the human mind is the art of reviewing books without having read them.


Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

  Email Quote to Friends   Link to Quote   Create Short URL  Publish Text About This Quote   Share on Facebook, Twitter, and more
  See Recommended Quotes For You

Related

I don't know if I have a favorite color.
KATE MIDDLETON It's very special having a new little girl.
KATE MIDDLETON When the enemy is relaxed, make them toil. When full, starve them. When settled, make them move.
SUN TZU We could live several lifetimes and never exhaust the power of our minds.
DENIS HACHEY All philosophic propositions, every attempt to think including all acts of oral or written articulat...
KILROY J. OLDSTER She said 'Over my dead body!' so I took her at her word.
DIANA WYNNE JONES The end of the world is a strange concept. The world is always ending, and the end is always being a...
NEIL GAIMAN What is the Other?" they ask.
The Other is the one who taught me whatI should be like, but not ...
PAULO COELHO It's all to do with the training: you can do a lot if you're properly trained.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II Like all best families, we have our share of eccentricities, of impetuous and wayward youngsters and...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II My husband has quite simply been my strength and stay all these years, and I owe him a debt greater ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II It is easy enough to define what the Commonwealth is not. Indeed this is quite a popular pastime.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I have to be seen to be believed.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I have in sincerity pledged myself to your service, as so many of you are pledged to mine. Throughou...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I hope that tomorrow we can all, wherever we are, join in expressing our grief at Diana's loss, ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I myself prefer my New Zealand eggs for breakfast.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II The British constitution has always been puzzling and always will be.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I have behind me not only the splendid traditions and the annals of more than a thousand years but t...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II To what greater inspiration and counsel can we turn than to the imperishable truth to be found in th...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II What were once only hopes for the future have now come to pass; it is almost exactly 13 years since ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II First, I want to pay tribute to Diana myself. She was an exceptional and gifted human being. In good...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I cannot lead you into battle. I do not give you laws or administer justice but I can do something e...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II To all those who have suffered as a consequence of our troubled past I extend my sincere thoughts an...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II Grief is the price we pay for love.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II The upward course of a nation's history is due in the long run to the soundness of heart of its ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II At its heart, engineering is about using science to find creative, practical solutions. It is a nobl...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II At Christmas, I am always struck by how the spirit of togetherness lies also at the heart of the Chr...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II For many, Christmas is also a time for coming together. But for others, service will come first.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II The lessons from the peace process are clear; whatever life throws at us, our individual responses w...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your s...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II Therefore I am sure that this, my Coronation, is not the symbol of a power and a splendor that are g...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II We lost the American colonies because we lacked the statesmanship to know the right time and the man...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II Madam President, speaking here in Dublin Castle it is impossible to ignore the weight of history, as...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II These wretched babies don't come until they are ready.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I know of no single formula for success. But over the years I have observed that some attributes of ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II The events that I have attended to mark my Diamond Jubilee have been a humbling experience. It has t...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II In remembering the appalling suffering of war on both sides, we recognise how precious is the peace ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II Like all the best families, we have our share of eccentricities, of impetuous and wayward youngsters...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II No one who knew Diana will ever forget her. Millions of others who never met her, but felt they knew...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II I have been aware all the time that my peoples, spread far and wide throughout every continent and o...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II A book can become your best companion in times of crisis.
Not only do you learn in the journey ...
LIZ HAY Look, my friends!' he called. 'Here's a pretty hobbit-skin to wrap an elven princeling in! If it wer...
J.R.R. TOLKIEN We'll sort of get over the marriage first and then maybe look at the kids. But obviously we want...
PRINCE WILLIAM Family is the most important thing in the world.
PRINCESS DIANA You philosophers are lucky men. You write on paper and paper is patient. Unfortunate Empress that I ...
CATHERINE THE GREAT With the right help, children have a good chance of overcoming their issues while they are still you...
KATE MIDDLETON As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.
KING SOLOMON I don't mind a big fascinator. I think there is more scope for artwork in a fascinator rather th...
ZARA PHILLIPS I was always told from the hat-makers that you should have your hair up because it shows the hat mor...
ZARA PHILLIPS I don't think I'll still be riding at 40. There are a couple of people who are still riding ...
ZARA PHILLIPS My dad's not a big talker.
ZARA PHILLIPS My dad can be pretty critical sometimes.
ZARA PHILLIPS I'd love to have kids, but not at the moment.
ZARA PHILLIPS You cannot make horses 'safe.'
ZARA PHILLIPS Virtually everything that gets printed about me is wrong anyway, so it doesn't really matter wha...
ZARA PHILLIPS It's stupid to say that I don't like being in the public eye, but I don't like doing stu...
ZARA PHILLIPS I'm an affectionate person.
ZARA PHILLIPS People still text me to say that there is something about me in the paper, and what really annoys me...
ZARA PHILLIPS Sometimes people will come up in the street and say: 'My daughter loves you, will you sign an au...
ZARA PHILLIPS Taking part in an Olympics on home ground is something you dream about.
ZARA PHILLIPS My brother and I have been able to get on and have been very lucky to do things with our family that...
ZARA PHILLIPS I don't think about the media.
ZARA PHILLIPS I love the sport and being competitive.
ZARA PHILLIPS The horses are all characters, all personalities. Some you get along with, some you don't, some ...
ZARA PHILLIPS I hate having my picture taken.
ZARA PHILLIPS Unfortunately in sport it's either good or bad. You've got to take the highs and the lows.
ZARA PHILLIPS My mother is massively into sailing, so we always had Musto clothes, and it went on from there, real...
ZARA PHILLIPS The senior members of the royal family work very hard and I don't think people quite realise tha...
ZARA PHILLIPS In our sport you're very lucky to find a horse of a lifetime and I found mine relatively early. ...
ZARA PHILLIPS I don't have a stylist, and I do most of my shopping online, just because it's easier. I don...
ZARA PHILLIPS I think Facebook's dangerous. So many people I know get into trouble with Facebook... I'd ra...
ZARA PHILLIPS I'm not a princess anyway so I find that quite weird to be labelled as one.
ZARA PHILLIPS Smoking is hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, and dangerous to the lungs.
KING JAMES I My dear mamma is quite right when she says that we must lay down principles and not depart from them...
MARIE ANTOINETTE I never make a trip to the United States without visiting a supermarket. To me they are more fascina...
WALLIS SIMPSON PS: It's all gossip about the prince. I'm not in the habit of taking my girlfriends' bea...
WALLIS SIMPSON I am so anxious for you not to abdicate and I think the fact that you do is going to put me in the w...
WALLIS SIMPSON I hate this place. I shall hate it to my grave.
WALLIS SIMPSON I look a hundred and weigh 110 - you won't love me when you see the wreck England has made me.
WALLIS SIMPSON A woman's life can really be a succession of lives, each revolving around some emotionally compe...
WALLIS SIMPSON Never explain, never complain.
WALLIS SIMPSON You have no idea how hard it is to live out a great romance.
WALLIS SIMPSON I have always had the courage for the new things that life sometimes offers.
WALLIS SIMPSON For a gallant spirit there can never be defeat.
WALLIS SIMPSON Forgive me for not writing but this man is exhausting.
WALLIS SIMPSON You can never be too rich or too thin.
WALLIS SIMPSON A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.
KING SOLOMON It seems to me that man is made to act rather than to know: the principles of things escape our most...
FREDERICK THE GREAT Addiction is a hugely complex and destructive disease, and its impact can be simply devastating. All...
KATE MIDDLETON There is nothing new except what has been forgotten.
MARIE ANTOINETTE I have seen all, I have heard all, I have forgotten all.
MARIE ANTOINETTE I think change needs to be egoless. It's not about my leaving my fingerprints or a legacy. It...
QUEEN RANIA OF JORDAN We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat. They do not exist.
QUEEN VICTORIA I can make a lord, but only God can make a gentleman.
KING JAMES I I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse.
CHARLES V I feel very, very lucky that George has got a little sister.
KATE MIDDLETON It would be doing me great injustice to think that I have any feeling of indifference to my country;...
MARIE ANTOINETTE I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.
AUGUSTUS A crown is merely a hat that lets the rain in.
FREDERICK THE GREAT Nothing is more useless in developing a nation's economy than a gun, and nothing blocks the road...
HUSSEIN OF JORDAN

More 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 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 In his Comedy, Dante Alighieri names Virgil, with many tokens of respect, as his teacher, and...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG To make clever people believe we are what we are not is in most instances harder than really to beco...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG You can make a good living from soothsaying but not from truthsaying
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG You believe I run after the strange because I do not know the beautiful; no, it is because you do no...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG If countries were named after the words you first hear when you go there, England would have to be c...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG I forget most of what I read, just as I do most of what I have eaten, but I know that both contribut...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG Whenever he composes a critical review, I have been told, he gets an enormous erection.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG There are very many people who read simply to prevent themselves from thinking.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG Nowadays three witty turns of phrase and a lie make a writer.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG No es que los oráculos hayan dejado de hablar, sino que los hombres han dejado de escucharlos.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG When a book and a head collide and a hollow sound is heard, must it always have come from the book?
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...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG To make a vow is a greater sin than to break one.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG Some people read because they are too lazy to think.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG Man…who lives in three places – in the past, in the present, and in the future – can be unhapp...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG Când ai de facut o lucrare, nu te gândi mereu la întregimea ei; executa fragmentul pe care-l ai �...
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 In each of us there is a little of all of us.
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