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
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Both good and evil actions require a certain level of insensitivity or talent.
This quote from Georg C. Lichtenberg underscores the paradox that excelling in both immoral actions and virtuous deeds often entails a form of insensitivity. While society typically views insensitivity as a negative trait, the quote suggests that such a quality may be a necessary component in the pursuit of greatness or infamy, provoking thought about the moral dimensions of talent and determination in human behavior.
Themes
TalentInsensitivityMoralityActionGreatness
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a discussion about the moral implications of success in business.
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.
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
When men are oppressed, it's a tragedy. When women are oppressed, it's tradition.
Letty Cottin PogrebinRead
Let no Christian therefore, whether philosopher or theologian, embrace eagerly and lightly whatever novelty happens to be thought up from day to day, but rather let him weigh it with painstaking care and a balanced judgment, lest he lose or corrupt the truth he already has, with grave danger and damage to his faith.
Pope Pius XiiRead
I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous boy, The sleepless soul that perished in his pride; Of him who walked in glory and in joy, Following his plough, along the mountain-side. By our own spirits we are deified; We Poets in our youth begin in gladness, But thereof come in the end despondency and madness.
William WordsworthRead
To know that you are neither the body nor mind, watch yourself steadily and live unaffected by your body and mind, completely aloof, as if you were dead. It means you have no vested interests, either in the body or in the mind.
Sri Nisargadatta MaharajRead
You wish to be liked. I wish simply to be. One day you will know what that means, perhaps. And you will smile. Not against me. But with me.
John FowlesRead
I try to take what voice I have and I give it to those who don’t have one at all.
W. Eugene SmithRead