-
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 -
With most people disbelief in a thing is founded on a blind belief in some other thing.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
-
What is called an acute knowledge of human nature is mostly nothing but the observer's own weaknesses reflected back from others.
Georg C. Lichtenberg -
There exists a species of transcendental ventriloquism by means of which men can be made to believe that something said on earth comes from Heaven.
Georg C. Lichtenberg -
If people should ever start to do only what is necessary millions would die of hunger.
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 -
He who is in love with himself has at least this advantage - he won't encounter many rivals.
Georg C. Lichtenberg -
What is the good of drawing conclusions from experience? I don't deny we sometimes draw the right conclusions, but don't we just as often draw the wrong ones?
Georg C. Lichtenberg
-
Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit.
Georg C. Lichtenberg -
Nothing makes one old so quickly as the ever-present thought that one is growing older.
Georg C. Lichtenberg -
I am convinced we do not only love ourselves in others but hate ourselves in others too.
Georg C. Lichtenberg -
Man loves company - even if it is only that of a small burning candle.
Georg C. Lichtenberg -
The fly that doesn't want to be swatted is most secure when it lights on the fly-swatter.
Georg C. Lichtenberg -
Nowadays three witty turns of phrase and a lie make a writer.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
-
The human tendency to regard little things as important has produced very many great things.
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 -
To do the opposite of something is also a form of imitation, namely an imitation of its opposite.
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 -
That man is the noblest creature may also be inferred from the fact that no other creature has yet contested this claim.
Georg C. Lichtenberg -
Men still have to be governed by deception.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
-
We have no words for speaking of wisdom to the stupid. He who understands the wise is wise already.
Georg C. Lichtenberg -
Sickness is mankind's greatest defect.
Georg C. Lichtenberg -
The noble simplicity in the works of nature only too often originates in the noble shortsightedness of him who observes it.
Georg C. Lichtenberg -
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.
Georg C. Lichtenberg