Georg C. Lichtenberg Sayings and Quotes

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

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

He who is in love with himself has at least this advantage - he won't encounter many rivals.

There are very many people who read simply to prevent themselves from thinking.

Nowadays three witty turns of phrase and a lie make a writer.

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

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

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

Nothing can contribute more to peace of soul than the lack of any opinion whatever.

That man is the noblest creature may also be inferred from the fact that no other creature has yet contested this claim.

Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit.

Delight at having understood a very abstract and obscure system leads most people to believe in the truth of what it demonstrates.

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

Nothing makes one old so quickly as the ever-present thought that one is growing older.

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

There are people who possess not so much genius as a certain talent for perceiving the desires of the century, or even of the decade, before it has done so itself.

Virtue by premeditation isn't worth much.

If the little bit you have is nothing special in itself, at least find a way of saying it that is a little bit special.

Man…who lives in three places – in the past, in the present, and in the future – can be unhappy if one of these three is worthless. Religion has even added a fourth – eternity.

One's first step in wisdom is to question everything - and one's last is to come to terms with everything.