Georg C. Lichtenberg Quotes
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Delight at having understood a very abstract and obscure system leads most people to believe in the truth of what it demonstrates.
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I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better.
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Prejudices are so to speak the mechanical instincts of men: through their prejudices they do without any effort many things they would find too difficult to think through to the point of resolving to do them.
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The most dangerous untruths are truths slightly distorted.
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There is no greater impediment to progress in the sciences than the desire to see it take place too quickly.
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Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinion at all.
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Never undertake anything for which you wouldn't have the courage to ask the blessings of heaven.
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Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together.
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We say that someone occupies an official position, whereas it is the official position that occupies him.
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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.
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Man is to be found in reason, God in the passions.
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It is in the gift for employing all the vicissitudes of life to one's own advantage and to that of one's craft that a large part of genius consists.
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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.
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To be content with life or to live merrily, rather all that is required is that we bestow on all things only a fleeting, superficial glance; the more thoughtful we become the more earnest we grow.
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A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.
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It is almost everywhere the case that soon after it is begotten the greater part of human wisdom is laid to rest in repositories.
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A book is a mirror: if an ape looks into it an apostle is hardly likely to look out.
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Much can be inferred about a man from his mistress: in her one beholds his weaknesses and his dreams.
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There are very many people who read simply to prevent themselves from thinking.
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To err is human also in so far as animals seldom or never err, or at least only the cleverest of them do so.
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We cannot remember too often that when we observe nature, and especially the ordering of nature, it is always ourselves alone we are observing.
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Once we know our weaknesses they cease to do us any harm.
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We accumulate our opinions at an age when our understanding is at its weakest.
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I believe that man is in the last resort so free a being that his right to be what he believes himself to be cannot be contested.