1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg Quotes
page 2

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg was a German physicist, satirist, and Anglophile. As a scientist, he was the first to hold a professorship explicitly dedicated to experimental physics in Germany. He is remembered for his posthumously published notebooks, which he himself called Sudelbücher, a description modelled on the English bookkeeping term "scrapbooks", and for his discovery of tree-like electrical discharge patterns now called Lichtenberg figures. Wikipedia  

✵ 1. July 1742 – 24. February 1799
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg photo
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg: 137   quotes 3   likes

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg Quotes

“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 Christoph Lichtenberg

D 6
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook D (1773-1775)

Idea

“Reason now gazes above the realm of the dark but warm feelings as the Alpine peaks do above the clouds. They behold the sun more clearly and distinctly, but they are cold and unfruitful.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

L 50
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook L (1793-1796)

Feeling , Sun

“If it is permissible to write plays that are not intended to be seen, I should like to see who can prevent me from writing a book no one can read.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

F 1
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook F (1776-1779)

Books , Reading

“Food probably has a very great influence on the condition of men. Wine exercises a more visible influence, food does it more slowly but perhaps just as surely. Who knows if a well-prepared soup was not responsible for the pneumatic pump or a poor one for a war?”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

A 14
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook A (1765-1770)

Men , War , Food , Exercises

“The great rule: 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 Christoph Lichtenberg

E 55
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook E (1775 - 1776)

Way

“The most successful tempters and thus the most dangerous are the deluded deluders.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

F 120
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook F (1776-1779)

Success

“Body and soul: a horse harnessed beside an ox.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

D 103
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook D (1773-1775)

Soul , Horse

“The noble simplicity in the works of nature only too often originates in the noble shortsightedness of him who observes it.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

H 1
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook H (1784-1788)

Nature

“We do not think good metaphors are anything very important, but I think that a good metaphor is something even the police should keep an eye on…”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

E 91
Variant translation: A good metaphor is something even the police should keep an eye on.
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook E (1775 - 1776)

Thinking

“If you are going to build something in the air it is always better to build castles than houses of cards.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

F 39
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook F (1776-1779)

Housing

“You believe that 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

F160
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook F (1776-1779)

Beauty

“There are two ways of extending life: firstly by moving the two points "born" and "died" farther away from one another… The other method is to go more slowly and leave the two points wherever God wills they should be, and this method is for the philosophers.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

B 22
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook B (1768-1771)

Life , God , Way

“Do not commence your exercises in philosophy in those regions where an error can deliver you over to the executioner.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

C 16
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook C (1772-1773)

Error , Exercises

“He was always smoothing and polishing himself, and in the end he became blunt before he was sharp.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

L 70
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook L (1793-1796)

“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 Christoph Lichtenberg

K 42
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook K (1789-1793)

Perfection

“He who says he hates every kind of flattery, and says it in earnest, certainly does not yet know every kind of flattery.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

K 41
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook K (1789-1793)

Hate

“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 Christoph Lichtenberg

F 84
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook F (1776-1779)

Men

“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)

Men , Learning

“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)

Truth

“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)

Wisdom , Parting

“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)

Peace , Soul

“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)

Women , Future , Country

“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)

Lie

“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)

Effort

“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)

Men , Thinking , Effort

“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)

“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)

Stupidity

“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)

Science

“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)

Understanding , Learning , Appearance , Science

“I have written a good number of drafts and small reflections. They are not waiting for the last touch but for the sunlight to wake them up.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

B 29
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook B (1768-1771)

Waiting

“People nowadays have such high hopes of America and the political conditions obtaining there that one might say the desires, at least the secret desires, of all enlightened Europeans are deflected to the west, like our magnetic needles.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

G 2
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook G (1779-1783)

People , Secret , Hope

“Ideas too are a life and a world.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

F 70
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook F (1776-1779)

Life , World , Idea

“What most clearly characterizes true freedom and its true employment is its misemployment.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

L 49
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook L (1793-1796)

Freedom

“Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

C 26
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook C (1772-1773)

“Doubt must be no more than vigilance, otherwise it can become dangerous.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

F 53
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook F (1776-1779)

“There is no more important rule of conduct in the world than this: attach yourself as much as you can to people who are abler than you and yet not so very different that you cannot understand them.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

F 81
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook F (1776-1779)

People , World , Understanding

“I am convinced we do not only love ourselves in others but hate ourselves in others too.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

F 54
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook F (1776-1779)

Love , Hate

“If an angel were ever to tell us anything of his philosophy I believe many propositions would sound like 2 times 2 equals 13.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

B 44
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook B (1768-1771)

Angels , Time

“The greatest events occur without intention playing any part in them; chance makes good mistakes and undoes the most carefully planned undertaking. The world's greatest events are not produced, they happen.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

K 68
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook K (1789-1793)

World , Chance , Parting

“The human tendency to regard little things as important has produced very many great things.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

G 46
Variant translation: The inclination of people to consider small things as important has produced many great things.
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook G (1779-1783)

“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 Christoph Lichtenberg

K 29
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook K (1789-1793)

Life

“A clever child brought up with a foolish one can itself become foolish. Man is so perfectable and corruptible he can become a fool through good sense.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

F 69
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook F (1776-1779)

Fools , Sense , Perfection

“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 Christoph Lichtenberg

J 146
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook J (1789)

Error , Question

“One is rarely an impulsive innovator after the age of sixty, but one can still be a very fine orderly and inventive thinker. One rarely procreates children at that age, but one is all the more skilled at educating those who have already been procreated, and education is procreation of another kind.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

K 51
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook K (1789-1793)

Children , Age , Education