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
We can see nothing whatever of the soul unless it is visible in the expression of the countenance; one might call the faces at a large assembly of people a history of the human soul written in a kind of Chinese ideograms.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The expression on our faces reflects the deeper aspects of our souls.
Georg C. Lichtenberg suggests that the true essence of our souls can be interpreted through our facial expressions. By observing the faces of people in a crowd, one can perceive a narrative of human emotions and experiences, akin to reading a complex form of language that reveals our innermost thoughts and feelings.
Themes
SoulExpressionFacesHuman ExperienceEmotions
In practice
Example use cases
During a public speaking event, you might say this quote to emphasize the importance of body language.
More from Georg C. Lichtenberg
All quotes →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.
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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.
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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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