Georg C. Lichtenberg
Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinion at all.Collection: Peace
Even truth needs to be clad in new garments if it is to appeal to a new age.Collection: Brainy
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.Collection: Imagination
Perhaps in time the so-called Dark Ages will be thought of as including our own.Collection: History
It is almost everywhere the case that soon after it is begotten the greater part of human wisdom is laid to rest in repositories.Collection: Wisdom
Never undertake anything for which you wouldn't have the courage to ask the blessings of heaven.Collection: Courage
We have no words for speaking of wisdom to the stupid. He who understands the wise is wise already.Collection: Wisdom
One must judge men not by their opinions, but by what their opinions have made of them.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Change
Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together.Collection: Intelligence
The most dangerous untruths are truths slightly distorted.
Man loves company - even if it is only that of a small burning candle.
Sickness is mankind's greatest defect.
A book is a mirror: if an ape looks into it an apostle is hardly likely to look out.
Doubt must be no more than vigilance, otherwise it can become dangerous.
Once we know our weaknesses they cease to do us any harm.
He who is in love with himself has at least this advantage - he won't encounter many rivals.
A handful of soldiers is always better than a mouthful of arguments.
Men still have to be governed by deception.
To err is human also in so far as animals seldom or never err, or at least only the cleverest of them do so.
I am convinced we do not only love ourselves in others but hate ourselves in others too.
A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.
The most perfect ape cannot draw an ape; only man can do that; but, likewise, only man regards the ability to do this as a sign of superiority.
Much can be inferred about a man from his mistress: in her one beholds his weaknesses and his dreams.
Man is a masterpiece of creation if for no other reason than that, all the weight of evidence for determinism notwithstanding, he believes he has free will.
With prophecies the commentator is often a more important man than the prophet.
Many things about our bodies would not seem to us so filthy and obscene if we did not have the idea of nobility in our heads.
Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit.
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.
Virtue by premeditation isn't worth much.
Nowadays three witty turns of phrase and a lie make a writer.
We are obliged to regard many of our original minds as crazy at least until we have become as clever as they are.
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.
The noble simplicity in the works of nature only too often originates in the noble shortsightedness of him who observes it.
Every man has his moral backside which he refrains from showing unless he has to and keeps covered as long as possible with the trousers of decorum.
With a pen in my hand I have successfully stormed bulwarks from which others armed with sword and excommunication have been repulsed.
The sure conviction that we could if we wanted to is the reason so many good minds are idle.
He who says he hates every kind of flattery, and says it in earnest, certainly does not yet know every kind of flattery.
God created man in His own image, says the Bible; philosophers reverse the process: they create God in theirs.
When an acquaintance goes by I often step back from my window, not so much to spare him the effort of acknowledging me as to spare myself the embarrassment of seeing that he has not done so.
What is called an acute knowledge of human nature is mostly nothing but the observer's own weaknesses reflected back from others.
The American who first discovered Columbus made a bad discovery.
To do the opposite of something is also a form of imitation, namely an imitation of its opposite.
There are very many people who read simply to prevent themselves from thinking.
With most people disbelief in a thing is founded on a blind belief in some other thing.
Just as the performance of the vilest and most wicked deeds requires spirit and talent, so even the greatest demand a certain insensitivity which under other circumstances we would call stupidity.
The human tendency to regard little things as important has produced very many great things.
That man is the noblest creature may also be inferred from the fact that no other creature has yet contested this claim.
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.
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.