Skip to content

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg Quotes

1742–1799 Germany

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1 July 1742 – 24 February 1799) was a German scientist, satirist, and philosopher.

Germany
Academics
Non-fiction authors
Philosophers
Physicists

Also known as: Cristoph Lichtenberg, Georg C. Lichtenberg, Georg Lichtenberg, Lichtenberg, Lichtenberg, Georg Christoph

Random Georg Christoph Lichtenberg quote

143 quotes

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

Aphorisms (1765)

The fly that doesn't want to be swatted is most secure when it lights on the fly-swatter.

Aphorisms (1765)

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

Aphorisms (1765)

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

Aphorisms (1765)

If this is philosophy it is at any rate a philosophy that is not in its right mind.

Aphorisms (1765)

A schoolteacher or professor cannot educate individuals, he educates only species.

Aphorisms (1765)

That man is the noblest creature may also be inferred from the fact that no other creature has yet contested this claim.

Aphorisms (1765)

There are very many people who read simply to prevent themselves from thinking.

Aphorisms (1765)

With prophecies the commentator is often a more important man than the prophet.

Aphorisms (1765)

The noble simplicity in the works of nature only too often originates in the noble shortsightedness of him who observes it.

Aphorisms (1765)

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.

Aphorisms (1765)

A handful of soldiers is always better than a mouthful of arguments.

Aphorisms (1765)

There exists a species of transcendental ventriloquism by means of which men can be made to believe that something said on earth comes from Heaven.

Aphorisms (1765)

Body and soul: a horse harnessed beside an ox.

Aphorisms (1765)

Virtue by premeditation isn't worth much.

Aphorisms (1765)

And I thank the Lord a thousand times that he let me become an atheist.

It is we who are the measure of what is strange and miraculous: if we sought a universal measure the strange and miraculous would not occur and all things would be equal.

Aphorisms (1765)

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

Aphorisms (1765)

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

Aphorisms (1765)

The most successful tempters and thus the most dangerous are the deluded deluders.

Aphorisms (1765)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.