Georg Christoph Lichtenberg Quotes

It is almost impossible to carry the torch of truth through a crowd without singeing somebody's beard.

4912

The most dangerous of all falsehoods is a slightly distorted truth.

3337

When they have discovered truth in nature they fling it into a book, where it is even worse hands.

1449

...if we gained only one incontestable truth every ten years from each of our philosophical writers the harvest we reaped would be sufficient.

4636

If we thought more for ourselves we would have very many more bad books and very many more good ones.

4476

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.

3741

What I do not like about our definitions of genius is that there is in them nothing of the day of judgment, nothing of resounding through eternity and nothing of the footsteps of the Almighty.

3628

Many are less fortunate than you’ may not be a roof to live under, but it will serve to retire beneath in the event of a shower.

1729

Aujourd'hui, on cherche partout à répandre le savoir; qui sait si, dans quelques siècles, il n'y aura pas des universités pour rétablir l'ancienne ignorance?

3402

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

1334

When a book and a head collide and a hollow sound is heard, must it always have come from the book?

3332

Libraries can in general be too narrow or too wide for the soul.

4476

There is no mistaking a good book when one meets it. It is like falling in love.

4913

If countries were named after the words you first hear when you go there, England would have to be called "Damn It".

2187

I would give something to know for precisely whom the deeds were really done, of which it is publicly stated they were done 'for the Fatherland'.

2045

I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is that they must change if they are to get better.

2697

Când ai de facut o lucrare, nu te gândi mereu la întregimea ei; executa fragmentul pe care-l ai în fata, si când ai terminat cu el, mergi mai departe

3091