Quotes By Georg C. Lichtenberg

The American who first discovered Columbus made a bad discovery.

There is no greater impediment to progress in the sciences than the desire to see it take place too quickly.

That man is the noblest creature may also be inferred from the fact that no other creature has yet contested this claim.

There are people who possess not so much genius as a certain talent for perceiving the desires of the century, or even of the decade, before it has done so itself.

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.

We have no words for speaking of wisdom to the stupid. He who understands the wise is wise already.

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

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.

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

The Greeks possessed a knowledge of human nature we seem hardly able to attain to without passing through the strengthening hibernation of a new barbarism.

Much can be inferred about a man from his mistress: in her one beholds his weaknesses and his dreams.

A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.

Nothing makes one old so quickly as the ever-present thought that one is growing older.

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.

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.

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

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.

Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinion at all.

One must judge men not by their opinions, but by what their opinions have made of them.

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

We are obliged to regard many of our original minds as crazy at least until we have become as clever as they are.

A book is a mirror: if an ape looks into it an apostle is hardly likely to look out.

The most dangerous untruths are truths slightly distorted.

Even truth needs to be clad in new garments if it is to appeal to a new age.

The human tendency to regard little things as important has produced very many great things.

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.

If the little bit you have is nothing special in itself, at least find a way of saying it that is a little bit special.

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.

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

What is called an acute knowledge of human nature is mostly nothing but the observer's own weaknesses reflected back from others.