Georg C. Lichtenberg

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

— 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…

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

The most heated defenders of a science, who cannot endure the slightest sneer at it, are commonly those who have not made…

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

The pleasures of the imagination are as it were only drawings and models which are played with by poor people who cannot…

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

Many intelligent people, when about to write . . . , force on their minds a certain notion about style, just as…

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

He was always smoothing and polishing himself, and in the end he became blunt before he was sharp.

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

How might letters be most efficiently copied so that the blind might read them with their fingers?

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

Do not commence your exercises in philosophy in those regions where an error can deliver you over to the executioner.

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

He was then in his fifty-fourth year, when even in the case of poets reason and passion begin to discuss a peace…

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

He who says he hates every kind of flattery, and says it in earnest, certainly does not yet know every kind of…

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

I am grateful that I am not as judgmental as all those censorious, self-righteous people around me. In each of us there…

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

I am always grieved when a man of real talent dies. The world needs such men more than Heaven does.

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

What concerns me alone I only think, what concerns my friends I tell them, what can be of interest to only a…

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

The "second sight" possessed by the Highlanders in Scotland is actually a foreknowledge of future events. I believe they possess this gift…

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

A good means to discovery is to take away certain parts of a system to find out how the rest behaves.

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

I believe that man is in the last resort so free a being that his right to be what he believes himself…

— 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

Astronomy is perhaps the science whose discoveries owe least to chance, in which human understanding appears in its whole magnitude, and through…

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

It is too bad if you have to do everything upon reflection and can't do anything from early habit.

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

Cultivate that kind of knowledge which enables us to discover for ourselves in case of need that which others have to read…

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

If it is permissible to write plays that are not intended to be seen, I should like to see who can prevent…

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

No people are more conceited than those who depict their own feelings, especially if they happen to have a little prose at…

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

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

— 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…

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

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

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

Of all the inventions of man I doubt whether any was more easily accomplished than that of a Heaven.

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

It is we who are the measure of what is strange and miraculous: if we sought a universal measure the strange and…

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

Knowledge acquired too rapidly and without being personally supplemented is never very productive.

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

The proof that man is the noblest of all creatures is that no other creature has ever denied it.

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

Rational free spirits are the light brigade who go on ahead and reconnoiter the ground which the heavy brigade of the orthodox…

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

It is strange that only extraordinary men make the discoveries, which later appear so easy and simple.

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

When an acquaintance goes by I often step back from my window, not so much to spare him the effort of acknowledging…

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

Perseverance can lend the appearance of dignity and grandeur to many actions, just as silence in company affords wisdom and apparent intelligence…

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

One should never trust a person who, while assuring you of something, puts his hands on his heart.

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

Is it not strange that mankind should so willingly battle for religion and so unwillingly live according to its precepts?

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

To make astute people believe one is what one is not is, in most cases, harder than actually to become what one…

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

Never undertake anything unless you have the heart to ask Heaven's blessing on your undertaking.

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

I made the journey to knowledge like dogs who go for walks with their masters, a hundred times forward and backward over…

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

Many things about our bodies would not seem to us so filthy and obscene if we did not have the idea of…

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

Everyone who has ever written will have discovered that writing always awakens something which, though it lay within us, we failed clearly…

— Georg C. Lichtenberg