Quotes by G. C. Lichtenberg

G. C. Lichtenberg

German writer and physicist

Alive from: 1742-1799

Category: Writers (Contemporary)

Quotes 91 till 105 of 121.

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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.

• G. C. Lichtenberg

  

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  The pleasures of the imagination are as it were only drawings and models which are played with by poor people who cannot afford the real thing.

• G. C. Lichtenberg

  

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  The sure conviction that we could if we wanted to is the reason so many good minds are idle.

• G. C. Lichtenberg

  

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  The worst thing you can possibly do is worrying and thinking about what you could have done.

• G. C. Lichtenberg

  

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

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  There are people who possess not so much genius as a certain talent for perceiving the desires of the century, or even of the decade, before it has done so itself.

• G. C. Lichtenberg

  

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  There are very many people who read simply to prevent themselves from thinking.

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  There is no greater impediment to progress in the sciences than the desire to see it take place too quickly.

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  There is no more important rule of conduct in the world than this: attach yourself as much as you can to people who are abler than you and yet not so very different that you cannot understand them.

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  To be content with life - or to live merrily, rather -all that is required is that we bestow on all things only a fleeting, superficial glance; the more thoughtful we become the more earnest we grow.

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  To do the opposite of something is also a form of imitation, namely an imitation of its opposite.

• G. C. Lichtenberg

  

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  To err is human also in so far as animals seldom or never err, or at least only the cleverest of them do so.

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  To grow wiser means to learn to know better and better the faults to which this instrument with which we feel and judge can be subject.

• G. C. Lichtenberg

  

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  To receive applause for works which do not demand all our powers hinders our advance towards a perfecting of our spirit. It usually means that thereafter we stand still.

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  Virtue by premeditation isn't worth much.