Georg C. Lichtenberg Zitate auf Englisch

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

Georg C. Lichtenberg

If the little bit you have is nothing special in itself, at least find a way of saying it that is a little bit special.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

When an acquaintance goes by I often step back from my window, not so much to spare him the effort of acknowledging me as to spare myself the embarrassment of seeing that he has not done so.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

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

Georg C. Lichtenberg

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

Georg C. 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.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

To err is human also in so far as animals seldom or never err, or at least only the cleverest of them do so.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

We are obliged to regard many of our original minds as crazy at least until we have become as clever as they are.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Man is a masterpiece of creation if for no other reason than that, all the weight of evidence for determinism notwithstanding, he believes he has free will.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Many things about our bodies would not seem to us so filthy and obscene if we did not have the idea of nobility in our heads.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Just as we outgrow a pair of trousers, we outgrow acquaintances, libraries, principles, etc., at times before they're worn out and times - and this is the worst of all - before we have new ones.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Be wary of passing the judgment: obscure. To find something obscure poses no difficult, elephants and poodles find many things obscure.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

The human tendency to regard little things as important has produced very many great things.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

He who says he hates every kind of flattery, and says it in earnest, certainly does not yet know every kind of flattery.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

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

Georg C. Lichtenberg

It is in the gift for employing all the vicissitudes of life to one's own advantage and to that of one's craft that a large part of genius consists.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

I am convinced we do not only love ourselves in others but hate ourselves in others too.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

With a pen in my hand I have successfully stormed bulwarks from which others armed with sword and excommunication have been repulsed.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Sickness is mankind's greatest defect.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

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.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

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

Georg C. Lichtenberg

God created man in His own image, says the Bible; philosophers reverse the process: they create God in theirs.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

If all else fails, the character of a man can be recognized by nothing so surely as by a jest which he takes badly.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Here take back the stuff that I am, nature, knead it back into the dough of being, make of me a bush, a cloud, whatever you will, even a man, only no longer make me me.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

He who is in love with himself has at least this advantage - he won't encounter many rivals.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Man is to be found in reason, God in the passions.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

It is a question whether, when we break a murderer on the wheel, we do not fall into the error a child makes when it hits the chair it has bumped into.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

To receive applause for works which do not demand all our powers hinders our advance towards a perfecting of our spirit. It usually means that thereafter we stand still.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Never undertake anything for which you wouldn't have the courage to ask the blessings of heaven.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinion at all.

Georg C. Lichtenberg