Georg Christoph Lichtenberg quotes - page 7

Never undertake anything for which you wouldn't have the courage to ask the blessings of heaven. (Georg Christoph Lichtenberg)
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 Christoph Lichtenberg
We have no words for speaking of wisdom to the stupid. He who understands the wise is wise already.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
First there is a time when we believe everything, then for a little while we believe with discrimination, then we believe nothing whatever, and then we believe everything again - and, moreover, give reasons why we believe.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
One of the greatest creations of the human mind is the art of reviewing books without having read them.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
One's first step in wisdom is to question everything - and one's last is to come to terms with everything.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Cautiousness in judgment is nowadays to be recommended to each and every one:.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
All mathematical laws which we find in Nature are always suspect to me, in spite of their beauty.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
The motives that lead us to do anything might be arranged like the thirty-two winds and might be given names on the same pattern.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
We can see nothing whatever of the soul unless it is visible in the expression of the countenance.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
As the few adepts in such things well know, universal morality is to be found in little everyday penny-events just as much as in great ones. (Georg Christoph Lichtenberg)
Sense and understanding thus come to the aid of memory. Sense is order and order is in the last resort conformity with our nature. When we speak rationally we are only speaking in accordance with the nature of our being.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
It is we who are the measure of what is strange and miraculous.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
The worst thing you can possibly do is worrying and thinking about what you could have done.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
If all mankind were suddenly to practice honesty, many thousands of people would be sure to starve.
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
It is we who are the measure of what is strange and miraculous: if we sought a universal measure the strange and miraculous would not occur and all things would be equal.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
We can see nothing whatever of the soul unless it is visible in the expression of the countenance; one might call the faces at a large assembly of people a history of the human soul written in a kind of Chinese ideograms.
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 eyes.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
The motives that lead us to do anything might be arranged like the thirty-two winds and might be given names on the same pattern: for instance, "bread-bread-fame" or "fame-fame-bread."
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
All mathematical laws which we find in Nature are always suspect to me, in spite of their beauty. They give me no pleasure. They are merely auxiliaries. At close range it is all not true. (Georg Christoph Lichtenberg)
As the few adepts in such things well know, universal morality is to be found in little everyday penny-events just as much as in great ones. There is so much goodness and ingenuity in a raindrop that an apothecary wouldn't let it go for less than half-a-crown.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
There are people who believe everything is sane and sensible that is done with a solemn face. ... It is no great art to say something briefly when, like Tacitus, one has something to say; when one has nothing to say, however, and none the less writes a whole book and makes truth ... into a liar - that I call an achievement.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
With most people disbelief in a thing is founded on a blind belief in some other thing.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg