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. LichtenbergRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the complexity of human nature and the difficulty of truly understanding it without undergoing significant challenges.
Lichtenberg suggests that the ancient Greeks had an insightful understanding of human nature that modern society struggles to achieve, implying that a return to a more primitive state or a significant disruption is necessary for deep comprehension. He contrasts contemporary understanding with the wisdom of the past, highlighting how modern civilization may have lost its grasp on fundamental truths about humanity.
Themes
Human NatureUnderstandingWisdomGreek PhilosophyCivilization
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a philosophy lecture discussing the evolution of thought on human nature.
More from Georg C. Lichtenberg
All quotes βAstronomy 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.
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The thoughts written on the walls of madhouses by their inmates might be worth publicizing.
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The noble simplicity in the works of nature only too often originates in the noble shortsightedness of him who observes it.
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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?
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He who says he hates every kind of flattery, and says it in earnest, certainly does not yet know every kind of flattery.
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