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Georg Christoph Lichtenberg: 274 quotes3 likes

“He who knows himself properly can very soon learn to know all other men. It is all reflection.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

G 8
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook G (1779-1783)

“If it were true what in the end would be gained? Nothing but another truth. Is this such a mighty advantage? We have enough old truths still to digest, and even these we would be quite unable to endure if we did not sometimes flavor them with lies.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

E 10
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook E (1775 - 1776)

“Nothing makes one old so quickly as the ever-present thought that one is growing older.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

K 13
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook K (1789-1793)

“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 Christoph Lichtenberg

K 37
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook K (1789-1793)

“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 Christoph Lichtenberg

K 46
Variant translation: A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook K (1789-1793)

“Nothing can contribute more to peace of soul than the lack of any opinion whatever.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

E 11
Variant translations: Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinion at all.
Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all.
Nothing contributes more to a person's peace of mind than having no opinions at all.
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook E (1775 - 1776)

“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 Christoph Lichtenberg

J 249
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook J (1789)

“The "second sight" possessed by the Highlanders in Scotland is actually a foreknowledge of future events. I believe they possess this gift because they don't wear trousers… That is also why in all countries women are more prone to utter prophecies.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

L 26
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook L (1793-1796)

“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 Christoph Lichtenberg

C 38
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook C (1772-1773)

“So-called professional mathematicians have, in their reliance on the relative incapacity of the rest of mankind, acquired for themselves a reputation for profundity very similar to the reputation for sanctity possessed by theologians.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

K 52
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook K (1789-1793)

“Nowadays three witty turns of phrase and a lie make a writer.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

D 25
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook D (1773-1775)

“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 Christoph Lichtenberg

F 155
Source: Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook F (1776-1779)

“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 Christoph Lichtenberg

A 58
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook A (1765-1770)

“With prophecies the commentator is often a more important man than the prophet.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

H 23
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook H (1784-1788)

“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

D 70
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook D (1773-1775)

“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 Christoph Lichtenberg

L 98
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook L (1793-1796)

“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 Christoph Lichtenberg

F 87
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook F (1776-1779)

“Virtue by premeditation isn't worth much.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

H 13
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook H (1784-1788)

“The most heated defenders of a science, who cannot endure the slightest sneer at it, are commonly those who have not made very much progress in it and are secretly aware of this defect.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

F 8
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook F (1776-1779)

“Astronomy is perhaps the science whose discoveries owe least to chance, in which human understanding appears in its whole magnitude, and through which man can best learn how small he is.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

C 23
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook C (1772-1773)