Some men come by the name of genius in the same way as an insect comes by the name of centipede - not because it has a hundred feet, but because most people can't count above fourteen


Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

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There are very many people who read simply to prevent themselves from thinking.
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Nowadays three witty turns of phrase and a lie make a writer.
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No es que los oráculos hayan dejado de hablar, sino que los hombres han dejado de escucharlos.
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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.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
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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Every man has his moral backside which he refrains from showing unless he has to and keeps covered a...
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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.
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG
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.
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