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Home
Authors
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Physicist
About the author
To grow wiser means to learn to know better and better the faults to which this instrument with which we feel and judge can be subject.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Faults
The pleasures of the imagination are as it were only drawings and models which are played with by poor people who cannot afford the real thing.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#People
#Imagination
#Poor
The sure conviction that we could if we wanted to is the reason so many good minds are idle.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Reason
#Conviction
One must judge men not by their opinions, but by what their opinions have made of them.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Men
#Opinions
The fly that doesn't want to be swatted is most secure when it lights on the fly-swatter.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Want
The noble simplicity in the works of nature only too often originates in the noble shortsightedness of him who observes it.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Nature
#Simplicity
The most perfect ape cannot draw an ape; only man can do that; but, likewise, only man regards the ability to do this as a sign of superiority.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Ability
#Man
#Superiority
The most dangerous untruths are truths slightly distorted.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
The human tendency to regard little things as important has produced very many great things.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
The Greeks possessed a knowledge of human nature we seem hardly able to attain to without passing through the strengthening hibernation of a new barbarism.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Knowledge
#Nature
#Human nature
The American who first discovered Columbus made a bad discovery.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#American
#First
#Columbus
#Discovery
That man is the noblest creature may also be inferred from the fact that no other creature has yet contested this claim.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#May
#Man
#Fact
Sickness is mankind's greatest defect.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Mankind
#Sickness
Once we know our weaknesses they cease to do us any harm.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Harm
Prejudices are so to speak the mechanical instincts of men: through their prejudices they do without any effort many things they would find too difficult to think through to the point of resolving to do them.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Effort
Perhaps in time the so-called Dark Ages will be thought of as including our own.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Time
#Will
#Thought
There are people who possess not so much genius as a certain talent for perceiving the desires of the century, or even of the decade, before it has done so itself.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#People
#Talent
#Genius
With a pen in my hand I have successfully stormed bulwarks from which others armed with sword and excommunication have been repulsed.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Pen
One might call habit a moral friction: something that prevents the mind from gliding over things but connects it with them and makes it hard for it to free itself from them.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Habit
#Mind
We cannot remember too often that when we observe nature, and especially the ordering of nature, it is always ourselves alone we are observing.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Nature
To receive applause for works which do not demand all our powers hinders our advance towards a perfecting of our spirit. It usually means that thereafter we stand still.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Spirit
#Applause
With prophecies the commentator is often a more important man than the prophet.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Man
With most people disbelief in a thing is founded on a blind belief in some other thing.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#People
#Belief
#Blind
Man is to be found in reason, God in the passions.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#God
#Reason
#Man
When an acquaintance goes by I often step back from my window, not so much to spare him the effort of acknowledging me as to spare myself the embarrassment of seeing that he has not done so.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Effort
#Embarrassment
#Acquaintance
Nowadays three witty turns of phrase and a lie make a writer.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Writer
#Lie
#Witty
What is called an acute knowledge of human nature is mostly nothing but the observer's own weaknesses reflected back from others.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Nothing
#Knowledge
#Nature
#Human nature
What is the good of drawing conclusions from experience? I don't deny we sometimes draw the right conclusions, but don't we just as often draw the wrong ones?
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Right
#Experience
#Wrong
We have no words for speaking of wisdom to the stupid. He who understands the wise is wise already.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Words
#Wisdom
There are very many people who read simply to prevent themselves from thinking.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#People
#Thinking
We are obliged to regard many of our original minds as crazy at least until we have become as clever as they are.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
We accumulate our opinions at an age when our understanding is at its weakest.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Understanding
#Age
#Opinions
To err is human also in so far as animals seldom or never err, or at least only the cleverest of them do so.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Animals
To do the opposite of something is also a form of imitation, namely an imitation of its opposite.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Imitation
To be content with life or to live merrily, rather all that is required is that we bestow on all things only a fleeting, superficial glance; the more thoughtful we become the more earnest we grow.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Life
#Content
#Thoughtful
There is no greater impediment to progress in the sciences than the desire to see it take place too quickly.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Progress
#Desire
There exists a species of transcendental ventriloquism by means of which men can be made to believe that something said on earth comes from Heaven.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Earth
#Men
#Heaven
We say that someone occupies an official position, whereas it is the official position that occupies him.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
Doubt must be no more than vigilance, otherwise it can become dangerous.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Doubt
#Vigilance
Here take back the stuff that I am, nature, knead it back into the dough of being, make of me a bush, a cloud, whatever you will, even a man, only no longer make me me.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Will
#Being
#Man
#Nature
He who says he hates every kind of flattery, and says it in earnest, certainly does not yet know every kind of flattery.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Flattery
He who is in love with himself has at least this advantage - he won't encounter many rivals.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Love
God created man in His own image, says the Bible; philosophers reverse the process: they create God in theirs.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#God
#Bible
#Man
Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Ideas
#Genius
Every man has his moral backside which he refrains from showing unless he has to and keeps covered as long as possible with the trousers of decorum.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Man
I am convinced we do not only love ourselves in others but hate ourselves in others too.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Love
#Hate
Nothing makes one old so quickly as the ever-present thought that one is growing older.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Nothing
#Thought
#Old
Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
Many things about our bodies would not seem to us so filthy and obscene if we did not have the idea of nobility in our heads.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Idea
#Nobility
Be wary of passing the judgment: obscure. To find something obscure poses no difficult, elephants and poodles find many things obscure.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
Actual aristocracy cannot be abolished by any law: all the law can do is decree how it is to be imparted and who is to acquire it.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Law
#Aristocracy
A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Character
#Nothing
A handful of soldiers is always better than a mouthful of arguments.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Arguments
#Soldiers
A book is a mirror: if an ape looks into it an apostle is hardly likely to look out.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
Virtue by premeditation isn't worth much.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Virtue
#Worth
Even truth needs to be clad in new garments if it is to appeal to a new age.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Needs
#Truth
#Age
Men still have to be governed by deception.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Men
#Deception
Delight at having understood a very abstract and obscure system leads most people to believe in the truth of what it demonstrates.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#People
#Truth
#Delight
I believe that man is in the last resort so free a being that his right to be what he believes himself to be cannot be contested.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Right
#Being
#Man
Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinion at all.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Nothing
#Peace
#Mind
#Opinion
Nothing can contribute more to peace of soul than the lack of any opinion whatever.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Nothing
#Peace
#Soul
#Opinion
Much can be inferred about a man from his mistress: in her one beholds his weaknesses and his dreams.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Dreams
#Man
Man loves company - even if it is only that of a small burning candle.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Man
#Company
Man is a masterpiece of creation if for no other reason than that, all the weight of evidence for determinism notwithstanding, he believes he has free will.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Reason
#Man
#Free will
#Creation
#Weight
#Determinism
Just as we outgrow a pair of trousers, we outgrow acquaintances, libraries, principles, etc., at times before they're worn out and times - and this is the worst of all - before we have new ones.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Principles
#Libraries
If people should ever start to do only what is necessary millions would die of hunger.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#People
#Hunger
I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Will
#Change
Never undertake anything for which you wouldn't have the courage to ask the blessings of heaven.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Courage
#Blessings
#Heaven
If all else fails, the character of a man can be recognized by nothing so surely as by a jest which he takes badly.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Character
#Nothing
#Man
#Jest
Just as the performance of the vilest and most wicked deeds requires spirit and talent, so even the greatest demand a certain insensitivity which under other circumstances we would call stupidity.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Stupidity
#Spirit
#Circumstances
#Talent
#Performance
#Deeds
If the little bit you have is nothing special in itself, at least find a way of saying it that is a little bit special.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Nothing
#Saying
If you are going to build something in the air it is always better to build castles than houses of cards.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Houses
#Cards
It is a question whether, when we break a murderer on the wheel, we do not fall into the error a child makes when it hits the chair it has bumped into.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Question
#Error
It is almost everywhere the case that soon after it is begotten the greater part of human wisdom is laid to rest in repositories.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Rest
#Wisdom
It is in the gift for employing all the vicissitudes of life to one's own advantage and to that of one's craft that a large part of genius consists.
Georg C. Lichtenberg,
Physicist
#Life
#Genius