Quotes By 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.

One might call habit a moral friction: something that prevents the mind from gliding over things but connects it with them and makes it hard for it to free itself from them.

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

Perhaps in time the so-called Dark Ages will be thought of as including our own.

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.

The noble simplicity in the works of nature only too often originates in the noble shortsightedness of him who observes it.

Sickness is mankind's greatest defect.

With prophecies the commentator is often a more important man than the prophet.

Never undertake anything for which you wouldn't have the courage to ask the blessings of heaven.

We accumulate our opinions at an age when our understanding is at its weakest.

God created man in His own image, says the Bible; philosophers reverse the process: they create God in theirs.

Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit.

If people should ever start to do only what is necessary millions would die of hunger.

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

We cannot remember too often that when we observe nature, and especially the ordering of nature, it is always ourselves alone we are observing.