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Georg C. Lichtenberg Quotes


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

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.

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.

Virtue by premeditation isn't worth much.

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is the good of drawing conclusions from experience? I don't deny we sometimes draw the right conclusions, but don't we just as often draw the wrong ones?

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.

With a pen in my hand I have successfully stormed bulwarks from which others armed with sword and excommunication have been repulsed.

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

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