G. C. Lichtenberg Quotes

We have to believe that everything has a cause, as the spider spins its web in order to catch flies. But it does this before it knows there are such things as flies.

Nothing can contribute more to peace of soul than the lack of any opinion whatever.

I have never yet met anyone who did not think it was an agreeable sensation to cut tinfoil with scissors.

Perseverance can lend the appearance of dignity and grandeur to many actions, just as silence in company affords wisdom and apparent intelligence to a stupid person.

The wisdom of providence is as much revealed in the rarity of genius, as in the circumstance that not everyone is deaf or blind.

How might letters be most efficiently copied so that the blind might read them with their fingers?

Some people read only because they are too lazy to think.

The "second sight" possessed by the Highlanders in Scotland is actually a foreknowledge of future events. I believe they possess this gift because they don't wear trousers.

As soon as you know a man to be blind, you imagine that you can see it from his back.

Most subjects at universities are taught for no other purpose than that they may be re-taught when the students become teachers.

Affectation is a very good word when someone does not wish to confess to what he would none the less like to believe of himself.

Many intelligent people, when about to write . . . , force on their minds a certain notion about style, just as they screw up their faces when they sit for their portraits.

The construction of the universe is certainly very much easier to explain than is that of the plant.

Ideas too are a life and a world.

Reason now gazes above the realm of the dark but warm feelings as the Alpine peaks do above the clouds. They behold the sun more clearly and distinctly, but they are cold and unfruitful.

Reading means borrowing.

The writer who cannot sometimes throw away a thought about which another man would have written dissertations, without worry whether or not the reader will find it, will never become a great writer.

The man was such an intellectual he was of almost no use.

What you have been obliged to discover by yourself leaves a path in your mind which you can use again when the need arises.

An hour-glass is a reminder not only of time's quick flight, but also of the dust to which we must at last return

Imagine the world so greatly magnified that particles of light look like twenty-four-pound cannon balls.

There is no greater impediment to progress in the sciences than the desire to see it take place too quickly.

If an angel were to tell us about his philosophy, I believe many of his statements might well sound like '2 x 2= 13'.

How happily some people would live if they troubled themselves as little about other people's business as about their own.

If brandy was made out of sparrows there would soon be no sparrows.

There is something in the character of every man which cannot be broken in--the skeleton of his character; and to try to alter this is like training a sheep for draught purposes.

Honor is infinitely more valuable than positions of honor.

One use of dreams is that, unprejudiced by our often forced and artificial reflections, they represent the impartial outcome of our entire being.

It is a dangerous thing for the perfecting of our minds to gain applause by works that do not call forth the whole of our energies; for in that case one generally comes to a standstill.

Body and soul: a horse harnessed beside an ox.

Is it so unjust that a man should leave the world by the same gate through which he entered it?

Man is perhaps half mind and half matter in the same way as the polyp is half plant and half animal. The strangest creatures are always found on the border lines of species.

Knowledge acquired too rapidly and without being personally supplemented is never very productive.

One should never trust a person who, while assuring you of something, puts his hands on his heart.

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.

Just as there are polysyllabic words that say very little, so there are also monosyllabic words of infinite meaning.

Many a man who is willing to be shot for his belief in a miracle would have doubted, had he been present at the miracle itself.

As nations improve, so do their gods.

It not seldom happens that in the purposeless rovings and wanderings of the imagination we hunt down such game as can be put to use by our purposeful philosophy in its well-ordered household.

It is a sure evidence of a good book if it pleases us more and more as we grow older.

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

Cultivate that kind of knowledge which enables us to discover for ourselves in case of need that which others have to read or be told of.

How few friends would remain friends if each could see the sentiments of the other in their entirety.

No people are more conceited than those who depict their own feelings, especially if they happen to have a little prose at their command for the occasion.

Propositions on which all men are in agreement are true: if they are not true we have no truth at all.

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.

A good part of the fame of most celebrated men is due to the shortsightedness of their admirers

Brevity: To say at once whatever is to be said.

The grave is still the best shelter against the storms of destiny.

Non cogitant, ergo non sunt.