German scientist & satirist (1742-1799)
How few friends would remain friends if each could see the sentiments of the other in their entirety.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
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The Reflections of Lichtenberg
Superstition originates among ordinary people in the early and all too zealous instruction they receive in religion: they hear of mysteries, miracles, deeds of the Devil, and consider it very probable that things of this sort could occur in everything anywhere.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The Waste Books
How happily some people would live if they troubled themselves as little about other people's business as about their own.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The Reflections of Lichtenberg
He who understands the wise is wise already.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
"Notebook E", Aphorisms
It is hardly to be believed how spiritual reflections when mixed with a little physics can hold people's attention and give them a livelier idea of God than do the often ill-applied examples of his wrath.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
"Notebook A", Aphorisms
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.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The Waste Books
If another Messiah was born he could hardly to so much good as the printing-press.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The Waste Books
Of all the inventions of man I doubt whether any was more easily accomplished than that of a Heaven.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
"Notebook L", Aphorisms
What is called an acute knowledge of human nature is mostly nothing but the observer's own weaknesses reflected back from others.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
"Notebook G", Aphorisms
He who is enamored of himself will at least have the advantage of being inconvenienced by few rivals.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
"Notebook H", Aphorisms
The fear of death which is imprinted in men is at the same time a great expedient Heaven employs to hinder them from many misdeeds: many things are left undone for fear of imperiling one's life or health.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The Waste Books
Man is so perfectable and corruptible he can become a fool through good sense.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
"Notebook F", Aphorisms
He possessed a great deal of philosophy, or of common sense that looked like it.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The Waste Books
To grow wiser means to learn to know better and better the faults to which this instrument with which we feel and judge can be subject.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The Waste Books
If brandy was made out of sparrows there would soon be no sparrows.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The Waste Books
In every man there is a little of all men.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The Reflections of Lichtenberg
Nothing can contribute more to peace of soul than the lack of any opinion whatever.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
"Notebook E", Aphorisms
We often have need of a profound philosophy to restore to our feelings their original state of innocence, to find our way out of the rubble of things alien to us, to begin to feel for ourselves and to speak ourselves, and I might almost say to exist ourselves. Even if my philosophy does not extend to discovering anything new, it does nevertheless possess the courage to regard as questionable what has long been thought true.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
"Notebook B", Aphorisms