German scientist & satirist (1742-1799)
A book is a mirror: if an ape looks into it an apostle is hardly likely to look out.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
"Notebook E", Aphorisms
One might call habit a moral friction: something that prevents the mind from gliding over things but connects it with them and makes it hard for it to free itself from them.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The Waste Books
The journalists have constructed for themselves a little wooden chapel, which they also call the Temple of Fame, in which they put up and take down portraits all day long and make such a hammering you can't hear yourself speak.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Aphorisms
If you are going to build something in the air it is always better to build castles than houses of cards.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
"Notebook F", Aphorisms
How few friends would remain friends if each could see the sentiments of the other in their entirety.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The Reflections of Lichtenberg
He who is enamored of himself will at least have the advantage of being inconvenienced by few rivals.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
"Notebook H", Aphorisms
If another Messiah was born he could hardly to so much good as the printing-press.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The Waste Books
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.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The Waste Books
Nothing can contribute more to peace of soul than the lack of any opinion whatever.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
"Notebook E", Aphorisms
Nowadays three witty turns of phrase and a lie make a writer.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
"Notebook D", Aphorisms
He possessed a great deal of philosophy, or of common sense that looked like it.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The Waste Books
We do not think good metaphors are anything very important, but I think that a good metaphor is something even the police should keep an eye on.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
"Notebook E", Aphorisms
Man is so perfectable and corruptible he can become a fool through good sense.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
"Notebook F", Aphorisms
No despotism is so formidable as that of a religion or a scientific system.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The Reflections of Lichtenberg
In every man there is a little of all men.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The Reflections of Lichtenberg
If brandy was made out of sparrows there would soon be no sparrows.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The Waste Books
The fear of death which is imprinted in men is at the same time a great expedient Heaven employs to hinder them from many misdeeds: many things are left undone for fear of imperiling one's life or health.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The Waste Books
We often have need of a profound philosophy to restore to our feelings their original state of innocence, to find our way out of the rubble of things alien to us, to begin to feel for ourselves and to speak ourselves, and I might almost say to exist ourselves. Even if my philosophy does not extend to discovering anything new, it does nevertheless possess the courage to regard as questionable what has long been thought true.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
"Notebook B", Aphorisms