Georg C. Lichtenberg Zitate auf Englisch

Zitat des Tages von Georg C. Lichtenberg:

We have no words for speaking of wisdom to the stupid. He who understands the wise is wise already.

I believe that man is in the last resort so free a being that his right to be what he believes himself to be cannot be contested.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

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

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Perhaps in time the so-called Dark Ages will be thought of as including our own.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

The Greeks possessed a knowledge of human nature we seem hardly able to attain to without passing through the strengthening hibernation of a new barbarism.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Men still have to be governed by deception.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Just as the performance of the vilest and most wicked deeds requires spirit and talent, so even the greatest demand a certain insensitivity which under other circumstances we would call stupidity.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

One must judge men not by their opinions, but by what their opinions have made of them.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

A book is a mirror: if an ape looks into it an apostle is hardly likely to look out.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

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

Georg C. Lichtenberg

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

Georg C. Lichtenberg

It is almost everywhere the case that soon after it is begotten the greater part of human wisdom is laid to rest in repositories.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

The sure conviction that we could if we wanted to is the reason so many good minds are idle.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Doubt must be no more than vigilance, otherwise it can become dangerous.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

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

Georg C. Lichtenberg

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

Georg C. Lichtenberg

I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

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.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

To do the opposite of something is also a form of imitation, namely an imitation of its opposite.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

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 C. Lichtenberg

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

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Delight at having understood a very abstract and obscure system leads most people to believe in the truth of what it demonstrates.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

We cannot remember too often that when we observe nature, and especially the ordering of nature, it is always ourselves alone we are observing.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

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

Georg C. Lichtenberg

What is the good of drawing conclusions from experience? I don't deny we sometimes draw the right conclusions, but don't we just as often draw the wrong ones?

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Actual aristocracy cannot be abolished by any law: all the law can do is decree how it is to be imparted and who is to acquire it.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

The most dangerous untruths are truths slightly distorted.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

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

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Once we know our weaknesses they cease to do us any harm.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

To be content with life or to live merrily, rather all that is required is that we bestow on all things only a fleeting, superficial glance; the more thoughtful we become the more earnest we grow.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

We have no words for speaking of wisdom to the stupid. He who understands the wise is wise already.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

If you are going to build something in the air it is always better to build castles than houses of cards.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

The most perfect ape cannot draw an ape; only man can do that; but, likewise, only man regards the ability to do this as a sign of superiority.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

The American who first discovered Columbus made a bad discovery.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

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

Georg C. Lichtenberg

We accumulate our opinions at an age when our understanding is at its weakest.

Georg C. Lichtenberg