Georg C. Lichtenberg Quotes - Page 7

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.

It is with epigrams as with other inventions; the best ones annoy us because we didn't think of them ourselves.

They do not think, therefore they are not.

Theologians always try to turn the Bible into a book without common sense.

Everyone is perfectly willing to learn from unpleasant experience - if only the damage of the first lesson could be repaired.

A man of spirit must not think of the word difficulty as so much as existing. Away with it!

The more experiences and experiments accumulate in the exploration of nature, the more precarious the theories become. But it is not always good to discard them immediately on this account. For every hypothesis which once was sound was useful for thinking of previous phenomena in the proper interrelations and for keeping them in context. We ought to set down contradictory experiences separately, until enough have accumulated to make building a new structure worthwhile.

It thunders, howls, roars, hisses, whistles, blusters, hums, growls, rumbles, squeaks, groans, sings, crackles, cracks, rattles, flickers, clicks, snarls, tumbles, whimpers, whines, rustles, murmurs, crashes, clucks, to gurgle, tinkles, blows, snores, claps, to lisp, to cough, it boils, to scream, to weep, to sob, to croak, to stutter, to lisp, to coo, to breathe, to clash, to bleat, to neigh, to grumble, to scrape, to bubble. These words, and others like them, which express sounds are more than mere symbols: they are a kind of hieroglyphics for the ear.

It is astonishing how much the word infinitely is misused: everything is infinitely more beautiful, infinitely better, etc. The concept must have something pleasing about it, or its misuse could not have become so general.

The world is a body common to all men, changes to it bring about a change in the souls of all men who are turned towards that part of it at that moment.

There is something in our minds like sunshine and the weather, which is not under our control. When I write, the best things come to me from I know not where.

There are people who can believe anything they wish. What lucky creatures!

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.

The sure conviction that we could if we wanted to is the reason so many good minds are idle.

The natural scientists of the previous age knew less than we do and believed they were very close to the goal: we have taken very great steps in its direction and now discover we are still very far away from it. With the most rational philosophers an increase in their knowledge is always attended by an increased conviction of their ignorance.

Every condition of the soul has its own sign and expression...So you will see how hard it is to seem original without being so.

Ambition and suspicion always go together.

Before one blames, one should always find out whether one cannot excuse.

Deliberate virtue is never worth much: The virtue of feeling or habit is the thing.

Most men of education are more superstitious than they admit - nay, than they think.

Whenever he composes a critical review, I have been told, he gets an enormous erection.

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

Man can acquire accomplishments or he can become an animal, whichever he wants. God makes the animals, man makes himself.

Is it not strange that mankind should so willingly battle for religion and so unwillingly live according to its precepts?

Where the frontier of science once was is now the centre.