“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)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "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 hi…" by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg?
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg photo
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg137
German scientist, satirist 1742–1799

Related quotes

Jean de La Bruyère photo

“A man in health questions whether there is a God, and he also doubts whether it be a sin to have intercourse with a woman, who is at liberty to refuse; but when he falls ill, or when his mistress is with child, she is discarded, and he believes in God.”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

Of Freethinkers (6)
Les Caractères (1688)

“Hitting a child is worse than murder!”

Irving Fiske (1908–1990) American writer

Source: Spoken to parents hitting their children by Irving whenever he saw it. Also spoken in most of the talks he gave on psychological transcendence and awareness. It probably appears in one of the books or magazines with pieces on Q. Hill and Irving Fiske, but I will need to look for it.

Walt Disney photo

“I do not make films primarily for children. I make them for the child in all of us, whether we be six or sixty. Call the child "innocence."”

Walt Disney (1901–1966) American film producer and businessman

The worst of us is not without innocence, although buried deeply it might be. In my work I try to reach and speak to that innocence, showing it the fun and joy of living; showing it that laughter is healthy; showing it that the human species, although happily ridiculous at times, is still reaching for the stars.
As quoted in A Walt Disney World Resort Outing : The Only Vacation Planning Guide Exclusively for Gay and Lesbian Travelers (2002) by Dann Hazel and Josh Fippen, p. 211

Alice Munro photo

“Because if she let go of her grief even for a minute it would only hit her harder when she bumped into it again.”

Alice Munro (1931) Canadian novelist

Family Furnishings: Selected Stories, 1995-2014 (2014)
Source: Away from Her

“Child, child, do you not see? For each of us comes a time when we must be more than what we are.”

Lloyd Alexander book The Black Cauldron

Source: The Chronicles of Prydain (1964–1968), Book III: The Castle of Llyr (1966), Chapter 1
Source: The Black Cauldron

“Choices will continually be necessary and -- let us not forget -- possible. Obedience to God is always possible. It is a deadly error to fall into the notion that when feelings are extremely strong we can do nothing but act on them.”

Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) American missionary

Source: Discipline: The Glad Surrender

Alejandro Jodorowsky photo

“When we do something we have never done, we are already on the road to healing. We must break the routines.”

Alejandro Jodorowsky (1929) Filmmaker and comics writer

Psychomagic: The Transformative Power of Shamanic Psychotherapy (2010)

Sara Ahmed photo

“We learn about worlds when they do not accommodate us. Not being accommodated can be pedagogy. We generate ideas through the struggles we have to be in the world; we come to question worlds when we are in question. When a question becomes a place you reside in, everything can be thrown into question: explanations you might have handy that allow you to make sense or navigate your way through unfamiliar as well as familiar landscapes no longer work.”

Sara Ahmed (1969) Australian and British academic

Source: "An Affinity of Hammers" (2016), p. 22

China Miéville photo

“It felt like being a child again, though it was not. Being a child is like nothing. It's only being. Later, when we think about it, we make it into youth.”

China Miéville Embassytown

Source: Embassytown (2011), Chapter "Formerly, 2"

Related topics