Top 75 Quotes by Georg C. Lichtenberg

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.

Perhaps in time the so-called Dark Ages will be thought of as including our own.

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.

There exists a species of transcendental ventriloquism by means of which men can be made to believe that something said on earth comes from Heaven.

We say that someone occupies an official position, whereas it is the official position that occupies him.

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

He who says he hates every kind of flattery, and says it in earnest, certainly does not yet know every kind of flattery.

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

We are obliged to regard many of our original minds as crazy at least until we have become as clever as they are.

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.