Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer t...
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG Man loves company - even if it is only that of a small burning candle.
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG It is a question whether, when we break a murderer on the wheel, we do not fall into the error a chi...
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG If people should ever start to do only what is necessary millions would die of hunger.
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG Virtue by premeditation isn't worth much.
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG If moderation is a fault, then indifference is a crime.
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG He who is enamored of himself will at least have the advantage of being inconvenienced by few rival...
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG Once we know our weaknesses they cease to do us any harm.
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG Just as we outgrow a pair of trousers, we outgrow acquaintances, libraries, principles, etc., at tim...
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG Sickness is mankind's greatest defect.
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG If you are going to build something in the air it is always better to build castles than houses of c...
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG Even truth needs to be clad in new garments if it is to appeal to a new age.
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG To err is human also in so far as animals seldom or never err, or at least only the cleverest of the...
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG A book is a mirror: if an ape looks into it an apostle is hardly likely to look out.
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG Actual aristocracy cannot be abolished by any law: all the law can do is decree how it is to be impa...
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG Every man has his moral backside which he refrains from showing unless he has to and keeps covered a...
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG The Greeks possessed a knowledge of human nature we seem hardly able to attain to without passing th...
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG Perhaps in time the so-called Dark Ages will be thought of as including our own.
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG The most dangerous untruths are truths slightly distorted.
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG Here take back the stuff that I am, nature, knead it back into the dough of being, make of me a bush...
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG With most people disbelief in a thing is founded on a blind belief in some other thing.
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG Man is a masterpiece of creation if for no other reason than that, all the weight of evidence for de...
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG He who says he hates every kind of flattery, and says it in earnest, certainly does not yet know eve...
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG The most successful tempters and thus the most dangerous are the deluded deluders.
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG Be wary of passing the judgment: obscure. To find something obscure poses no difficult, elephants an...
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG Many things about our bodies would not seem to us so filthy and obscene if we did not have the idea ...
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG One might call habit a moral friction: something that prevents the mind from gliding over things but...
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit.
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG There is no greater impediment to progress in the sciences than the desire to see it take place too ...
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG It is almost everywhere the case that soon after it is begotten the greater part of human wisdom is ...
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG If all else fails, the character of a man can be recognized by nothing so surely as by a jest which ...
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG Just as the performance of the vilest and most wicked deeds requires spirit and talent, so even the ...
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG Much can be inferred about a man from his mistress: in her one beholds his weaknesses and his dreams...
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG To receive applause for works which do not demand all our powers hinders our advance towards a perfe...
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG Virtue by premeditation isn't worth much.
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG The most perfect ape cannot draw an ape; only man can do that; but, likewise, only man regards the a...
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG Prejudices are so to speak the mechanical instincts of men: through their prejudices they do without...
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG There exists a species of transcendental ventriloquism by means of which men can be made to believe ...
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG Doubt must be no more than vigilance, otherwise it can become dangerous.
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG With a pen in my hand I have successfully stormed bulwarks from which others armed with sword and ex...
GEORG C. LICHTENBERG Nothing makes one old so quickly as the ever-present thought that one is growing older.
GEORG C. 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 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