Quotes By 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 this as a sign of superiority.

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.

Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinion at all.

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

Man is a masterpiece of creation if for no other reason than that, all the weight of evidence for determinism notwithstanding, he believes he has free will.

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

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

One must judge men not by their opinions, but by what their opinions have made of them.

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

A book is a mirror: if an ape looks into it an apostle is hardly likely to look out.

The most dangerous untruths are truths slightly distorted.

The human tendency to regard little things as important has produced very many great things.

Just as the performance of the vilest and most wicked deeds requires spirit and talent, so even the greatest demand a certain insensitivity which under other circumstances we would call stupidity.

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.

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.

The sure conviction that we could if we wanted to is the reason so many good minds are idle.

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?

I believe that man is in the last resort so free a being that his right to be what he believes himself to be cannot be contested.

To be content with life or to live merrily, rather all that is required is that we bestow on all things only a fleeting, superficial glance; the more thoughtful we become the more earnest we grow.

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

Just as we outgrow a pair of trousers, we outgrow acquaintances, libraries, principles, etc., at times before they're worn out and times - and this is the worst of all - before we have new ones.

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

One might call habit a moral friction: something that prevents the mind from gliding over things but connects it with them and makes it hard for it to free itself from them.

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

Perhaps in time the so-called Dark Ages will be thought of as including our own.

Sickness is mankind's greatest defect.

There exists a species of transcendental ventriloquism by means of which men can be made to believe that something said on earth comes from Heaven.

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

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