Hieroglyphics Quotes by Georg C. Lichtenberg

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

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

We can see nothing whatever of the soul unless it is visible in the expression of the countenance; one might call the faces at…

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

The wisdom of providence is as much revealed in the rarity of genius, as in the circumstance that not everyone is deaf or blind.

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

I ceased in the year 1764 to believe that one can convince one’s opponents with arguments printed in books. It is not to do…

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

Probably no invention came more easily to man than heaven.

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

It is a great shame; most of our words are misused tools / which often still smell of the mud in which previous owners…

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

To live when you do not want to is dreadful, but it would be even more terrible to be immortal when you did not…

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

He who understands the wise is wise already.

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

The fruits of philosophy are the important thing, not the philosophy itself. When we ask the time, we don't want to know how watches…

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

He who says he hates all kinds of flattery, and says so in earnest, has undoubtedly not as yet become acquainted with all kinds…

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

One can live in this world on soothsaying but not on truth saying.

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

Actual aristocracy cannot be abolished by any law: all the law can do is decree how it is to be imparted and who is…

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

One of the greatest and also the commonest of faults is for men to believe that, because they never hear their shortcomings spoken of,…

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

People who never have any time on their hands are those who do the least.

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

An hour-glass is a reminder not only of time's quick flight, but also of the dust to which we must at last return

— Georg C. Lichtenberg