“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.”

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

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 "The greatest events occur without intention playing any part in them; chance makes good mistakes and undoes the most ca…" by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg?
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg photo
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg 137
German scientist, satirist 1742–1799

Related quotes

Charles James Fox photo

“How much the greatest event it is that ever happened in the world! and how much the best!”

Charles James Fox (1749–1806) British Whig statesman

Letter to Mr. Fitzpatrick (30 July 1789) on the fall of the Bastille, printed in J. Russell (ed.), Memorials and Correspondence of Charles James Fox. Volume II (London: Richard Bentley, 1853), p. 361.
1780s

Robert G. Ingersoll photo

“The greatest men the world has produced have known but little. They had a few facts, mingled with mistakes without number.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

The Great Infidels (1881)
Context: The greatest men the world has produced have known but little. They had a few facts, mingled with mistakes without number. In some departments they towered above their fellows, while in others they fell below the common level of mankind.

N. R. Narayana Murthy photo
John Ralston Saul photo
Tiësto photo

“The opportunity to perform my music for billions of people around the globe will be the greatest highlight of my life, I am honoured to be part of the biggest sports event in the world.”

Tiësto (1969) Dutch DJ and record producer

Tiësto said about the ATHOC.
Source: [Dutch Top DJ Tiësto to rock opening Olympics 2004 Greece this Friday at Kennisland, http://blog.kennisland.nl/kennisland/2004/08/12/dutch_top_dj_ti/, Kennisland.nl, 2008-04-17]

“A good many inconveniences attend playgoing in any large city, but the greatest of them is usually the play itself.”

Kenneth Tynan (1927–1980) English theatre critic and writer

Article in the New York Herald Tribune (17 February 1957)

Ulysses S. Grant photo

“I repeat that the adoption of the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution completes the greatest civil change and constitutes the most important event that has occurred since the nation came into life. The change will be beneficial in proportion to the heed that is given to the urgent recommendations of Washington.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

1870s, Message to the Senate and House of Representatives (1870)
Context: In his first annual message to Congress the same views are forcibly presented, and are again urged in his eighth message. I repeat that the adoption of the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution completes the greatest civil change and constitutes the most important event that has occurred since the nation came into life. The change will be beneficial in proportion to the heed that is given to the urgent recommendations of Washington. If these recommendations were important then, with a population of but a few millions, how much more important now, with a population of 40,000,000, and increasing in a rapid ratio.

“It is not easy to tear any event out of the context of the universe in which it occurred without detaching from it some factor that influenced it.”

Carroll Quigley (1910–1977) American historian

Source: The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (Second Edition 1979), Chapter 1, Scientific Method and the Social Sciences, p. 35

Dan Quayle photo

“We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur.”

Dan Quayle (1947) American politician, lawyer

Cited to the Cleveland Plain Dealer (27 September 1990)

Related topics