The drive to propagate our race has also propagated a lot of other things


Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

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He does a lot of good things. He also has a lot of things to learn.
JAY FEASTER
A book is a mirror: if an ape looks into it an apostle is hardly likely to look out.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
To do just the opposite is also a form of imitation.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
With most men, unbelief in one thing springs from blind belief in another.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer t...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
One's first step in wisdom is to question everything - and one's last is to come to terms with every...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
With most people unbelief in one thing is founded upon blind belief in another.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Don't judge a man by his opinions, but what his opinions have made of him.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
What a blessing it would be if we could open and shut our ears as easily as we open and shut our eye...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
There are people who think that everything one does with a serious face is sensible.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The worst thing you can possibly do is worrying and thinking about what you could have done.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The proof that man is the noblest of all creatures is that no other creature has ever denied it.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The human tendency to regard little things as important has produced very many great things.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Perhaps in time the so-called Dark Ages will be thought of as including our own.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
One of the greatest creations of the human mind is the art of reviewing books without having read th...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinion at all.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Judge men not by their opinions, but by what their opinions have made of them.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
He who is in love with himself has at least this advantage - he won't encounter many rivals.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
First there is a time when we believe everything, then for a little while we believe with discrimina...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Everyone is a genius at least once a year; a real genius has his original ideas closer together.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
A book is a mirror; if an ass peers into it, you can not expect an apostle to peer out.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
When a book and a head collide and there is a hollow sound, is it always from the book?
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
What a blessing it would be if we could open and shut our ears as easily as we open and shut our mou...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
An hour-glass is a reminder not only of time's quick flight, but also of the dust to which we must a...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Some men come by the name of genius in the same way as an insect comes by the name of centipede - no...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The man was such an intellectual he was of almost no use.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Nothing is more conductive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
God created man in His own image, says the Bible; philosophers reverse the process: they create God ...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The sure conviction that we could if we wanted to is the reason so many good minds are idle.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The thoughts written on the walls of madhouses by their inmates might be worth publicizing.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
I cannot stop thinking that I died before I was born and that at my death I will return to the same ...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
A book is a mirror: If an ass peers into it, you can't expect an apostle to look out
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
One might call habit a moral friction: something that prevents the mind from gliding over things but...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Every man has his moral backside which he refrains from showing unless he has to and keeps covered a...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
What most clearly characterizes true freedom and its true employment is its misemployment.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
It is we who are the measure of what is strange and miraculous: if we sought a universal measure the...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The noble simplicity in the works of nature only too often originates in the noble shortsightedness ...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Many a man who is willing to be shot for his belief in a miracle would have doubted, had he been pre...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
You can make a good living from soothsaying, but not from truthsaying
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
As nations improve, so do their gods
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Most men of education are more superstitious than they admit - nay, than they think
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Those who never have time do least
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
A clever child brought up with a foolish one can itself become foolish. Man is so perfectible and co...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
It often takes more courage to change one's opinion than to stick to it.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Man loves company even if only that of a small burning candle
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
A good metaphor is something even the police should keep an eye on.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Jedermann sollte wenigstens soviel Philosophie und schöne Wissenschaften studieren, als nötig ist,...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The most dangerous of all falsehoods is a slightly distorted truth
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Much can be inferred about a man from his mistress: in her one beholds his weaknesses and his dreams...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Man loves company even if it is only that of a small burning candle
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
To read means to borrow; to create out of one's readings is paying off one's debts
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The most dangerous untruths are truths moderately distorted.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
If moderation is a fault then indifference is a crime
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
To do just the opposite is also a form of imitation
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is that they must change if...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
After all, is our idea of God anything more than personified incomprehensibility?

{Said i...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Aujourd'hui, on cherche partout à répandre le savoir; qui sait si, dans quelques siècles, il n'y ...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
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
I think we're doing a lot of great things this year. Our goal is to drive the job fair part and deve...
COY TOW
Mike got most of our points, but our other kids did a lot also.
BRIAN MENY
This was our first 4,000-meter race of the season, and that showed a little. I saw a lot of positive...
BILL MARTENS
The race has got a lot of depth. There's a whole lot of contenders.
PADDY GALLAGHER

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
One of the greatest creations of the human mind is the art of reviewing books without having read th...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinion at all.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Judge men not by their opinions, but by what their opinions have made of them.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
He who is in love with himself has at least this advantage - he won't encounter many rivals.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
First there is a time when we believe everything, then for a little while we believe with discrimina...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Everyone is a genius at least once a year; a real genius has his original ideas closer together.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
A book is a mirror; if an ass peers into it, you can not expect an apostle to peer out.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
When a book and a head collide and there is a hollow sound, is it always from the book?
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
What a blessing it would be if we could open and shut our ears as easily as we open and shut our mou...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
An hour-glass is a reminder not only of time's quick flight, but also of the dust to which we must a...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Some men come by the name of genius in the same way as an insect comes by the name of centipede - no...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The man was such an intellectual he was of almost no use.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Nothing is more conductive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
God created man in His own image, says the Bible; philosophers reverse the process: they create God ...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The sure conviction that we could if we wanted to is the reason so many good minds are idle.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The thoughts written on the walls of madhouses by their inmates might be worth publicizing.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
I cannot stop thinking that I died before I was born and that at my death I will return to the same ...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
A book is a mirror: If an ass peers into it, you can't expect an apostle to look out
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
One might call habit a moral friction: something that prevents the mind from gliding over things but...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Every man has his moral backside which he refrains from showing unless he has to and keeps covered a...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
What most clearly characterizes true freedom and its true employment is its misemployment.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
It is we who are the measure of what is strange and miraculous: if we sought a universal measure the...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The noble simplicity in the works of nature only too often originates in the noble shortsightedness ...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Many a man who is willing to be shot for his belief in a miracle would have doubted, had he been pre...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
You can make a good living from soothsaying, but not from truthsaying
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
As nations improve, so do their gods
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Most men of education are more superstitious than they admit - nay, than they think
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Those who never have time do least
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
A clever child brought up with a foolish one can itself become foolish. Man is so perfectible and co...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
It often takes more courage to change one's opinion than to stick to it.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Man loves company even if only that of a small burning candle
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
A good metaphor is something even the police should keep an eye on.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Jedermann sollte wenigstens soviel Philosophie und schöne Wissenschaften studieren, als nötig ist,...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The most dangerous of all falsehoods is a slightly distorted truth
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Much can be inferred about a man from his mistress: in her one beholds his weaknesses and his dreams...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Man loves company even if it is only that of a small burning candle
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
To read means to borrow; to create out of one's readings is paying off one's debts
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The most dangerous untruths are truths moderately distorted.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
If moderation is a fault then indifference is a crime
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
To do just the opposite is also a form of imitation
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is that they must change if...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
After all, is our idea of God anything more than personified incomprehensibility?

{Said i...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Aujourd'hui, on cherche partout à répandre le savoir; qui sait si, dans quelques siècles, il n'y ...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
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