One's first step in wisdom is to question everything - and one's last is to come to terms with everything. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
When a book and a head collide and there is a hollow sound, is it always from the book? - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is that they must change if they are to get better. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Everyone is a genius at least once a year; a real genius has his original ideas closer together. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
I would give something to know for precisely whom the deeds were really done, of which it is publicly stated they were done 'for the Fatherland'. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
There are people who think that everything one does with a serious face is sensible. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Când ai de facut o lucrare, nu te gândi mereu la întregimea ei; executa fragmentul pe care-l ai în fata, si când ai terminat cu el, mergi mai departe - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
I am confident of my ability to demonstrate that one can sometimes believe in something and yet not believe in it. Nothing is less fathomable than the systems that motivate our actions. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
With most men, unbelief in one thing springs from blind belief in another. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Perhaps in time the so-called Dark Ages will be thought of as including our own. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
When they have discovered truth in nature they fling it into a book, where it is even worse hands. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Judge men not by their opinions, but by what their opinions have made of them. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Diogenes, filthily attired, paced across the splendid carpets in Plato's dwelling. Thus, said he, do I trample on the pride of Plato. Yes, Plato replied, but only with another kind of pride. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
One of the greatest creations of the human mind is the art of reviewing books without having read them. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Many are less fortunate than you’ may not be a roof to live under, but it will serve to retire beneath in the event of a shower. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Libraries can in general be too narrow or too wide for the soul. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Man…who lives in three places – in the past, in the present, and in the future – can be unhappy if one of these three is worthless. Religion has even added a fourth – eternity. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
What a blessing it would be if we could open and shut our ears as easily as we open and shut our eyes! - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
The proof that man is the noblest of all creatures is that no other creature has ever denied it. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Don't judge a man by his opinions, but what his opinions have made of him. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
A book is a mirror; if an ass peers into it, you can not expect an apostle to peer out. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
To do just the opposite is also a form of imitation. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
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 Christoph Lichtenberg
It is almost impossible to carry the torch of truth through a crowd without singeing somebody's beard. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
The worst thing you can possibly do is worrying and thinking about what you could have done. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
He who is in love with himself has at least this advantage - he won't encounter many rivals. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
The human tendency to regard little things as important has produced very many great things. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Ich kann freilich nicht sagen, ob es besser werden wird wenn es anders wird; aber so viel kann ich sagen, es muß anders werden, wenn es gut werden soll. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
If we thought more for ourselves we would have very many more bad books and very many more good ones. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
There is no mistaking a good book when one meets it. It is like falling in love. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
What I do not like about our definitions of genius is that there is in them nothing of the day of judgment, nothing of resounding through eternity and nothing of the footsteps of the Almighty. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinion at all. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
...if we gained only one incontestable truth every ten years from each of our philosophical writers the harvest we reaped would be sufficient. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Where the frontier of science once was is now the centre. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg