Georg Christoph Lichtenberg Quotes

Affectation is a very good word when someone does not wish to confess to what he would none the less like to believe of himself.

Is it not strange that men are so keen to fight for religion and so unkeen to live according to its precepts?

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...

To do just the opposite is also a form of imitation.

A clever child brought up with a foolish one can itself become foolish. Man is so perfectable and corruptible he can become a fool through good sense.

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

Body and soul: a horse harnessed beside an ox.

Reason now gazes above the realm of the dark but warm feelings as the Alpine peaks do above the clouds. They behold the sun more clearly and distinctly, but they are cold and unfruitful.

Deutsche Charaktere. Das ist die schon hundertmal hergeleierte Klage der allgemeinen Bibliothek, über der einem fast alle Gedult ausgehen mögte. Ich frage gleich: Was ist ein deutscher Charakter? Was? Nicht wahr, Tabakrauchen und Ehrlichkeit? O Ihr einfältigen Tröpfe. Hört seid so gut und sagt mir, was ist es für Wetter in Amerika? Soll ichs statt eurer sagen? Gut. Es blitzt, es hagelt, es ist dreckig, es ist schwül, es ist nicht auszustehn, es schneit, friert, wehet und die Sonne scheint.

There were honest people long before there were Christians and there are, God be praised, still honest people where there are no Christians. It could therefore easily be possible that people are Christians because true Christianity corresponds to what they would have been even if Christianity did not exist.

Courage, garrulousness and the mob are on our side. What more do we want?

With a pen in my hand I have successfully stormed bulwarks from which others armed with sword and excommunication have been repulsed.

Каквито са хората, такива са и книгите, които пишат.

Much reading has brought upon us a learned barbarism

Once the good man was dead, one wore his hat and another his sword as he had worn them, a third had himself barbered as he had, a fourth walked as he did, but the honest man that he was — nobody any longer wanted to be that.