Georg Christoph Lichtenberg quotes - page 2

Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit. (Georg Christoph Lichtenberg)
It is almost everywhere the case that soon after it is begotten the greater part of human wisdom is laid to rest in repositories. View quote
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
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. View quote
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
That man is the noblest creature may also be inferred from the fact that no other creature has yet contested this claim. View quote
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
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. View quote
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
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. View quote
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
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. View quote
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
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. View quote
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
He who says he hates every kind of flattery, and says it in earnest, certainly does not yet know every kind of flattery. View quote
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Man loves company - even if it is only that of a small burning candle. View quote
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
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 Christoph Lichtenberg)
A handful of soldiers is always better than a mouthful of arguments. View quote
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
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. View quote
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
The sure conviction that we could if we wanted to is the reason so many good minds are idle. View quote
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
We are obliged to regard many of our original minds as crazy at least until we have become as clever as they are. View quote
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
We say that someone occupies an official position, whereas it is the official position that occupies him. View quote
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Sickness is mankind's greatest defect. View quote
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
If people should ever start to do only what is necessary millions would die of hunger. View quote
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Delight at having understood a very abstract and obscure system leads most people to believe in the truth of what it demonstrates. View quote
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
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. View quote
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
There is no greater impediment to progress in the sciences than the desire to see it take place too quickly. (Georg Christoph Lichtenberg)
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. View quote
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Nothing can contribute more to peace of soul than the lack of any opinion whatever. View quote
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
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. View quote
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Virtue by premeditation isn't worth much. View quote
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg