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Portrait of Georg C. Lichtenberg

Georg C. Lichtenberg

295 quotes in 1053 categories

Georg C. Lichtenberg’s aphorisms sparkle with curiosity and humor. Across nearly three hundred entries you’ll find the playful intellect that bridges science, philosophy, and everyday observation.

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Georg Christoph Lichtenberg was a German physicist, satirist, and Anglophile. He was the first person in Germany to hold a professorship explicitly dedicated to experimental physics.

Quotes by Georg C. Lichtenberg

Barbaric accuracy - whimpering humility.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Accuracy

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Body and soul: a horse harnessed beside an ox.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Body

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Brevity: To say at once whatever is to be said.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Brevity

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In each of us there is a little of all of us.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Alike

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Ideas too are a life and a world.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Ideas

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God: personified incomprehensibility.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Personified

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Virtue by premeditation isn't worth much.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Premeditation

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Sickness is mankind's greatest defect.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Mankind

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If this is philosophy it is at any rate a philosophy that is not in its right mind.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Ifs

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The feeling of health can only be gained by sickness.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Doctor

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Man is so perfectable and corruptible he can become a fool through good sense.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Fool

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Why does a suppurating lung give so little warning and a sore on the finger so much?

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Doe

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

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Age

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Never trust a man who lays his hand on his heart when he assures you of anything.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Hands

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One of our forefathers must have read a forbidden book.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Book

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To read means to borrow; to create out of one s readings is paying off one's debts.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Book

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Here take back the stuff that I am, nature, knead it back into the dough of being, make of me a bush,…

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Dough

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

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Stupid

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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.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Abstract

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The world is a body common to all men, changes to it bring about a change in the souls of all men…

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Body

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Man is a masterpiece of creation if for no other reason than that, all the weight of evidence for determinism notwithstanding, he…

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Creation

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It is a dangerous thing for the perfecting of our minds to gain applause by works that do not call forth the…

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Applause

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With God thoughts are colors, with us they are pigments-even the most abstract one may be accompanied by physical pain.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Abstract

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Most subjects at universities are taught for no other purpose than that they may be re-taught when the students become teachers.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Education

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There is no more important rule of conduct in the world than this: attach yourself as much as you can to people…

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Conduct

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The great trick of regarding small departures from the truth as the truth itself - on which is founded the entire integral…

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Bases

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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…

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Etc

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The natural scientists of the previous age knew less than we do and believed they were very close to the goal: we…

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Age

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The greatest events occur without intention playing any part in them; chance makes good mistakes and undoes the most carefully planned undertaking.…

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Chance

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Cautiousness in judgment is nowadays to be recommended to each and every one: if we gained only one incontestable truth every ten…

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Cautiousness

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There are many who believe that 'Marriage is not a word - it is a sentence!' Whether you are indeed 'married' or…

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Believe

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Those who have racked their brains to discover new proofs have perhaps been induced to do so by a compulsion they could…

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Brain

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The more experiences and experiments accumulate in the exploration of nature, the more precarious the theories become. But it is not always…

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Accounts

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It thunders, howls, roars, hisses, whistles, blusters, hums, growls, rumbles, squeaks, groans, sings, crackles, cracks, rattles, flickers, clicks, snarls, tumbles, whimpers, whines,…

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Blow

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If nature be regarded as the teacher and we poor human beings as her pupils, the human race presents a very curious…

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Add

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We now possess four principles of morality: 1) a philosophical: do good for its own sake, out of respect for the law;…

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Character

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Love is blind, but marriage restores its sight.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Blind

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God, who winds up our sundials ...

Georg C. Lichtenberg

God

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God creates the animals, man creates himself.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Animal

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Non cogitant, ergo non sunt.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Amor

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Georg C. Lichtenberg by topic

Men (43) Inspirational (33) People (32) Ifs (27) Science (22) Believe (19) Writer (18) Love (18) Books (18) World (17) Thinking (17) Littles (17) Should (16) Book (16) Writing (14) Psychology (14) Mind (13) Character (13) Way (12) Nature (12) Time (11) Philosophy (11) Reason (10) Knows (10) Whole (9)