Explore Quotes by Georg C. Lichtenberg

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

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

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

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

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

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

Prejudices are so to speak the mechanical instincts of men: through their prejudices they do without any effort many things they would find too difficult to think through to the point of resolving to do them.

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.

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

Sickness is mankind's greatest defect.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

We now possess four principles of morality: 1) a philosophical: do good for its own sake, out of respect for the law; 2) a religious: do good because it is God's will, out of love of God; 3) a human: do good because it will promote your happiness, out of self-love; 4) a political: do good because it will promote the welfare of the society of which you are a part, out of love of society having regard to yourself. But is this not all one single principle, only viewed from different sides?

To make astute people believe one is what one is not is, in most cases, harder than actually to become what one wishes to appear.

The worst thing you can possibly do is worrying and thinking about what you could have done.

He who is enamored of himself will at least have the advantage of being inconvenienced by few rivals.

If there were only turnips and potatoes in the world, someone would complain that plants grow the wrong way.

It often takes more courage to change one's opinion than to stick to it.