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. LichtenbergRead
Delight at having understood a very abstract and obscure system leads most people to believe in the truth of what it demonstrates.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Understanding complex ideas can lead to a belief in their truth, regardless of their obscurity.
Georg C. Lichtenberg suggests that when people grasp complicated and abstract concepts, they often become enamored with the understanding itself, which can lead them to uncritically accept the ideas as true. This highlights the potential for cognitive bias where enthusiasm for comprehension may overshadow critical analysis of the actual validity of the concepts presented.
Themes
UnderstandingBeliefTruthKnowledgeCognition
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion on philosophy, one might quote this to illustrate how people can misinterpret complex theories.
More from Georg C. Lichtenberg
All quotes βMany 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. LichtenbergRead
Astronomy is perhaps the science whose discoveries owe least to chance, in which human understanding appears in its whole magnitude, and through which man can best learn how small he is.
Georg C. LichtenbergRead
The thoughts written on the walls of madhouses by their inmates might be worth publicizing.
Georg C. LichtenbergRead
The noble simplicity in the works of nature only too often originates in the noble shortsightedness of him who observes it.
Georg C. LichtenbergRead
Food probably has a very great influence on the condition of men. Wine exercises a more visible influence, food does it more slowly but perhaps just as surely. Who knows if a well-prepared soup was not responsible for the pneumatic pump or a poor one for a war?
Georg C. LichtenbergRead
Similar quotes
There is nothing like the sight of an old enemy down on his luck.
EuripidesRead
Cut brambles long enough, Sprout after sprout, And the lotus will bloom Of its own accord: Already waiting in the clearing, The single image of light. The day you see this, That day you will become it.
Sun Bu'ErRead
To speculate without facts is to attempt to enter a house of which one has not the key, by wandering aimlessly round and round, searching the walls and now and then peeping through the windows. Facts are the key.
Julian HuxleyRead
Do not forget that the value and interest of life is not so much to do conspicuous things...as to do ordinary things with the perception of their enormous value.
Pierre Teilhard De ChardinRead
What was wonderful about childhood is that anything in it was a wonder. It was not merely a world full of miracles; it was a miraculous world.
Gilbert K. ChestertonRead
When reason ends, then anger begins. Therefore, anger is a sign of weakness.
Dalai LamaRead