Quotes from Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

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.

The most heated defenders of a science, who cannot endure the slightest sneer at it, are commonly those who have not made very much progress in it and are secretly aware of this defect.

Ein Buch ist ein Spiegel wenn ein Affe hineinsieht so kann kein Apostel heraus gucken.

Prejudices are so to speak the mechanical instincts of men: through their prejudices they do without any effort many things they would find too difficult to think through to the point of resolving to do them.

The excuses we make to ourselves when we want to do something are excellent material for soliloquies, for they are rarely made except when we are alone, and are very often made aloud.

It requires no especially great talent to write in such a way that another will be very hard put to it to understand what you have written

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

There is no more important rule of conduct in the world than this: attach yourself as much as you can to people who are abler than you and yet not so very different that you cannot understand them.

First we have to believe, and then we believe.

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

The greatest things in the world are brought about by other things which we count as nothing: little causes we overlook but which at length accumulate

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

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?

Nothing is more inimical to the progress of science than the belief that we know what we do not yet know.

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

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

Imaginas que yo persigo lo extraño por ignorancia de lo bello, pero no es así, ocurre que porque tu ignoras lo bello, yo busco lo extraño.

He who is enamoured of himself will at least have the advantage of being inconvenienced by few rivals.

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'.

No es que los oráculos hayan dejado de hablar, sino que los hombres han dejado de escucharlos.

The fly that does not want to be swatted is safest if it sits on the fly-swat.

For the loss of those we have loved there is no alleviation but time and carefully and rationally chosen diversions such as will not cause our heart to reproach us.

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

The most brightly colored birds sing the worst; the same goes for people.