Georg C. Lichtenberg Quotes - Page 10

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• 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.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Believe, Character, People

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• Here take back the stuff that I am, nature, knead it back into the dough of being, make of me a bush, a cloud, whatever you will, even a man, only no longer make me.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Suicide, Nature, Suicidal

  "Aphorisms". Book by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Notebook B 37, 1799.

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• Good taste is either that which agrees with my taste or that which subjects itself to the rule of reason. From this we can see how useful it is to employ reason in seeking out the laws of taste.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Law, Taste, Reason

  "Aphorisms". Book by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Notebook E 69, 1799.

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• 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.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Expression, People, Soul

  "Aphorisms". Book by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Notebook B 11, 1799.

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• If an angel were to tell us about his philosophy, I believe many of his statements might well sound like '2 x 2= 13'.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Philosophy, Believe, Angel

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• Body and soul: a horse harnessed beside an ox.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Horse, Soul, Body

  "Aphorisms". Book by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Notebook D 103, 1799.

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

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Food, Complaining, World

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• It is a dangerous thing for the perfecting of our minds to gain applause by works that do not call forth the whole of our energies; for in that case one generally comes to a standstill.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Mind, Gains, Energy

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• The construction of the universe is certainly very much easier to explain than is that of the plant.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Science, Construction, Plant

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• What is the good of drawing conclusions from experience? I don't deny we sometimes draw the right conclusions, but don't we just as often draw the wrong ones?

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Drawing, Sometimes, Deny

  "Aphorisms". Book by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Notebook F 123, 1799.

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• The fly that doesn't want to be swatted is most secure when it lights on the fly-swatter.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Inspirational, Philosophy, Philosophical

  "Aphorisms". Book by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Notebook J 70, 1799.

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• It is in most cases more difficult to make intelligent people believe that you are what you are not, than really to become what you would appear to be.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Believe, Intelligent, People

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• People who have read a good deal rarely make great discoveries. I do not say this in excuse of laziness, but because invention presupposes an extensive independent contemplation of things.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Independent, Discovery, People

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• So-called professional mathematicians have, in their reliance on the relative incapacity of the rest of mankind, acquired for themselves a reputation for profundity very similar to the reputation for sanctity possessed by theologians.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Math, Reputation, Sanctity

  "Aphorisms". Book by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Notebook K 52, 1799.

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• The celebrated painter Gainsborough got as much pleasure from seeing violins as from hearing them.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Art, Violin, Hearing

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• In each of us there is a little of all of us.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Littles

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• Man is a masterpiece of creation, if only because no amount of determinism can prevent him from believing that he acts as a free being.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Believe, Men, Creation

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• There were honest people long before there were Christians and there are, God be praised, still honest people where there are no Christians. It could therefore easily be possible that people are Christians because true Christianity corresponds to what they would have been even if Christianity did not exist.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Christian, Long, People

  "Aphorisms". Book by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Notebook L 16, 1799.

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• First there is a time when we believe everything, then for a little while we believe with discrimination, then we believe nothing whatever, and then we believe everything again - and, moreover, give reasons why we believe.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Believe, Giving, Littles

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• There are people who believe everything is sane and sensible that is done with a solemn face.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Believe, People, Identity

  "Aphorisms". Book by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Notebook E 59, 1799.

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• In mathematical analysis we call x the undetermined part of line a: the rest we don't call y, as we do in common life, but a-x. Hence mathematical language has great advantages over the common language.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Life, Math, Lines

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• 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. Lichtenberg

  Ideas, Body, Nobility

  "Aphorisms". Book by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Notebook D 6, 1799.

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• All mathematical laws which we find in Nature are always suspect to me, in spite of their beauty. They give me no pleasure. They are merely auxiliaries. At close range it is all not true.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Beauty, Nature, Math

  "Lichtenberg: A Doctrine of Scattered Occasions". Book by Joseph Peter Stern, p. 84, 1959.

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• He swallowed a lot of wisdom, but all of it seems to have gone down the wrong way.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Wisdom, Silly, Way

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• With prophecies the commentator is often a more important man than the prophet.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Men, Important, Prophet

  "Aphorisms". Book by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Notebook H 23, 1799.

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