Top 75 Quotes by Georg C. Lichtenberg

Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together.

Just as we outgrow a pair of trousers, we outgrow acquaintances, libraries, principles, etc., at times before they're worn out and times - and this is the worst of all - before we have new ones.

If all else fails, the character of a man can be recognized by nothing so surely as by a jest which he takes badly.

Delight at having understood a very abstract and obscure system leads most people to believe in the truth of what it demonstrates.

We cannot remember too often that when we observe nature, and especially the ordering of nature, it is always ourselves alone we are observing.

With most people disbelief in a thing is founded on a blind belief in some other thing.

I am convinced we do not only love ourselves in others but hate ourselves in others too.

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

Nothing makes one old so quickly as the ever-present thought that one is growing older.

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.