Quotes by Georg C. Lichtenberg

About Georg C. Lichtenberg:

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg 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 the strange tree-like patterns now called Lichtenberg figures.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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

Georg C. Lichtenberg

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

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Just as we outgrow a pair of trousers, we outgrow acquaintances, libraries, principles, etc., at times before they're worn out and times - and this is the worst of all - before we have new ones.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Man loves company - even if it is only that of a small burning candle.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

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

Georg C. Lichtenberg

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

Georg C. Lichtenberg

With most people disbelief in a thing is founded on a blind belief in some other thing.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Sickness is mankind's greatest defect.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

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 C. Lichtenberg

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 C. Lichtenberg

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 C. Lichtenberg

Once we know our weaknesses they cease to do us any harm.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Be wary of passing the judgment: obscure. To find something obscure poses no difficult, elephants and poodles find many things obscure.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

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 C. Lichtenberg

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 C. Lichtenberg

To err is human also in so far as animals seldom or never err, or at least only the cleverest of them do so.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

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 C. Lichtenberg

Every man has his moral backside which he refrains from showing unless he has to and keeps covered as long as possible with the trousers of decorum.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

There are very many people who read simply to prevent themselves from thinking.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

To do the opposite of something is also a form of imitation, namely an imitation of its opposite.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

To grow wiser means to learn to know better and better the faults to which this instrument with which we feel and judge can be subject.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Author Bio

  • NameGeorg C. Lichtenberg
  • DescriptionGerman scientist, satirist
  • BornJuly 1, 1742
  • DiedFebruary 24, 1799
  • CountryGermany
  • ProfessionPhysicist; Astronomer; Writer; Scientist
  • AwardsFellow Of The Royal Society