Georg Christoph Lichtenberg > Quotes

“Don't judge a man by his opinions, but what his opinions have made of him.”
― Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

“The thoughts written on the walls of madhouses by their inmates might be worth publicizing.”
― Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

“I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is that they must change if they are to get better.”
― 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, Sudelbücher.

“Man…who lives in three places – in the past, in the present, and in the future – can be unhappy if one of these three is worthless. Religion has even added a fourth – eternity.”
― Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

“The most dangerous of all falsehoods is a slightly distorted truth.”
― Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, The Waste Books

“There are very many people who read simply to prevent themselves from thinking.”
― Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, The Waste Books

“Whenever he composes a critical review, I have been told, he gets an enormous erection.”
― Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, The Waste Books

“Nothing is more conductive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all.”
― Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, The Waste Books

“A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.”
― Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, The Waste Books

“The highest level than can be reached by a mediocre but experienced mind is a talent for uncovering the weaknesses of those greater than itself.”
― Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

“It is almost impossible to carry the torch of truth through a crowd without singeing somebody's beard.”
― Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

“To do just the opposite is also a form of imitation.”
― Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, The Waste Books

“Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together.”
― Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

“If countries were named after the words you first hear when you go there, England would have to be called "Damn It".”
― Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Aphorisms

“You believe I run after the strange because I do not know the beautiful; no, it is because you do not know the beautiful that I seek the strange.”
― Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, The Waste Books

“I am confident of my ability to demonstrate that one can sometimes believe in something and yet not believe in it. Nothing is less fathomable than the systems that motivate our actions.”
― Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

“Perhaps in time the so-called Dark Ages will be thought of as including our own.”
― 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

“With most men, unbelief in one thing springs from blind belief in another.”
― Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

“Honest unaffected distrust of human abilities under all circumstances is the surest sign of strength of mind.”
― 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

“Much reading has brought upon us a learned barbarism”
― Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

“A sure sign of a good book is that you like it more the older you get.”
― Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

“If we thought more for ourselves we would have very many more bad books and very many more good ones.”
― Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

“Some people come by the name of genius in the same way that certain insects come by the name of centipede -- not because they have a hundred feet, but because most people can't count above 14.”
― Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

“In his Comedy, Dante Alighieri names Virgil, with many tokens of respect, as his teacher, and yet, as Herr Meinhard remarks, makes such ill use of him: a clear proof that even in the days of Dante one praised the ancients without knowing why. This respect for poets one does not understand and yet wishes to equal is the source of the bad writing in our literature. ”
― Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

“You can make a good living from soothsaying but not from truthsaying”
― Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, The Waste Books

“Diogenes, filthily attired, paced across the splendid carpets in Plato's dwelling. Thus, said he, do I trample on the pride of Plato. Yes, Plato replied, but only with another kind of pride.”
― Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

“It is impossible to have bad taste, but many people have none at all.”
― Georg Christoph Lichtenberg