Georg C. Lichtenberg Quotes - Page 9

We say that someone occupies an official position, whereas it is the official position that occupies him.

There is a great difference between believing in something and believing in it again.

Sickness is mankind's greatest defect.

The excuses we make to ourselves when we want to do something are excellent material for soliloquies, for they are rarely made except when we are alone, and are very often made aloud.

The thoughts written on the walls of madhouses by their inmates might be worth publicizing.

The drive to propagate our race has also propagated a lot of other things

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.

If this is philosophy it is at any rate a philosophy that is not in its right mind.

He who is in love with himself has at least this advantage - he won't encounter many rivals.

He who says he hates all kinds of flattery, and says so in earnest, has undoubtedly not as yet become acquainted with all kinds of it, whether in substance or in form.

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

Man is so perfectable and corruptible he can become a fool through good sense.

Never trust a man who lays his hand on his heart when he assures you of anything.

Honor is infinitely more valuable than positions of honor.

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

Is it so unjust that a man should leave the world by the same gate through which he entered it?

It is a dangerous thing for the perfecting of our minds to gain applause by works that do not call forth the whole of our energies; for in that case one generally comes to a standstill.

The construction of the universe is certainly very much easier to explain than is that of the plant.

I look upon book reviews as an infantile disease which new-born books are subject to.

In mathematical analysis we call x the undetermined part of line a: the rest we don't call y, as we do in common life, but a-x. Hence mathematical language has great advantages over the common language.

To live when you do not want to is dreadful, but it would be even more terrible to be immortal when you did not want to be. As things are, however, the whole ghastly burden is suspended from me by a thread which I can cut in two with a penny-knife.

One use of dreams is that, unprejudiced by our often forced and artificial reflections, they represent the impartial outcome of our entire being.

Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together.

I would give something to know for whose sake precisely those deeds were really done which report says were done for the fatherland.

The most perfect ape cannot draw an ape; only man can do that; but, likewise, only man regards the ability to do this as a sign of superiority.