Georg Christoph Lichtenberg Quotes

Do we write books so that they shall merely be read? Don't we also write them for employment in the household? For one that is read from start to finish, thousands are leafed through, other thousands lie motionless, others are jammed against mouseholes, thrown at rats, others are stood on, sat on, drummed on, have gingerbread baked on them or are used to light pipes.

Most of our expressions are metaphorical - the philosophy of our forefathers lies hidden in them.

Man is to be found in reason, God in the passions.

If countries were named after the words you first hear when you go there, England would have to be called Damn It.

Diogenes, filthily attired, paced across the splendid carpets in Plato's dwelling. Thus, said he, do I trample on the pride of Plato. Yes, Plato replied, but only with another kind of pride.

Man is always partial and is quite right to be. Even impartiality is partial.

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.

En el mundo uno encuentra con mayor frecuencia el consejo que el consuelo.

I believe that some of the greatest minds that ever lived had not read half as much and did not know nearly as much as some of our mediocre scholars. And some of our very mediocre scholars could have become greater men if they had not read so much.

Me parece imposible demostrar que somos la obra de un ser superior y no el pasatiempo de uno bastante defectuoso.

Nowadays three witty turns of phrase and a lie make a writer.

In his Comedy, Dante Alighieri names Virgil, with many tokens of respect, as his teacher, and yet as Herr Meinhard remarks, makes such ill use of him: clear proof that even in the days of Dante one praised the ancients without knowing why. This respect for poets one does not understand and yet wishes to equal is the source of the bad writing in our literature.

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.

What makes our poetry so contemptible nowadays is its paucity of ideas. If you want to be read, invent. Who the Devil wouldn't like to read something new?

A book is a mirror: if an ape looks into it an apostle is hardly likely to look out. We have no words for speaking of wisdom to the stupid. He who understands the wise is wise already.