Quotes from Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Is our conception of God anything more than personified incomprehensibility?

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.

To many people virtue consists chiefly in repenting faults, not in avoiding them.

I believe that some of the greatest minds that ever lived had not read half as much and did not know nearly as much as some of our mediocre scholars. And some 20 of our verr mediocre scholars could have become greater men if they had not read so much.

Wouldn't things look much better for the human race if we no longer had history, at least no political history? The human being then would act more in accordance with the energies he possesses at any given time; for as things stand today, the example that now and then makes one person better makes a thousand others worse.

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

Man sollte nie so viel zu tun haben, daß man zum zum Nachdenken keine Zeit mehr hat.

Kenntnis der Mittel ohne eine eigentliche Anwendung, ja ohne Gabe und Willen, sie anzuwenden, ist, was man jetzt gemeiniglich Gelehrsamkeit nennt.

One of our forefathers must have read a forbidden book.

To make astute people believe one is what one is not is, in most cases, harder than actually to become what one wishes to appear.

Wenn ein Buch und ein Kopf zusammenstoßen und es klingt hohl, ist das allemal im Buch?

En la naturaleza no hay palabras, solamente iniciales. Al releer las nuevas "palabras", descubrimos que no son sino iniciales de otras

A man has virtues enough if, on account of them, he deserves forgiveness for his faults.

Sometimes we know a person better than we can say, or at least than we do say.

Man findet Spuren aller Wissenschaften in den Sprachen, und umgekehrt vieles in den Sprachen das in den Wissenschaften nützen kann.

Die Metapher ist weit klüger als ihr Verfasser, und so sind es viele Dinge. Alles hat seine Tiefen. Wer Augen hat, der sieht alles in allem

Man loves company — even if it is only that of a small burning candle.

Vorstellungen sind auch ein Leben und eine Welt

Solche Zeilen wie einige in Psalm 4 werden wenige geschrieben. Wie unendlich viel steckt nicht in den Worten: Redet mit euren Herzen auf eurem Lager; opfert Gerechtigkeit und hoffet auf den Herrn. Eine ganze Religion!

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

A good means to discovery is to take away certain parts of a system to find out how the rest behaves.

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.

I believe that some of the greatest minds that ever lived had not read half as much and did not know nearly as much as some of our mediocre scholars. And some of our very mediocre scholars could have become greater men if they had not read so much.

Varias veces he sido censurado por faltas que mi censor no tuvo el ingenio o la energía de cometer.