Quotes By Georg C. Lichtenberg

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

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.

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

The Greeks possessed a knowledge of human nature we seem hardly able to attain to without passing through the strengthening hibernation of a new barbarism.

Doubt must be no more than vigilance, otherwise it can become dangerous.

A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.

Much can be inferred about a man from his mistress: in her one beholds his weaknesses and his dreams.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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