Georg Christoph Lichtenberg Quotes

Sin duda la primera sátira fue hecha por venganza. Utilizarla para el mejoramiento del prójimo, contra los vicios y no contra los viciosos, es ya un pensamiento domesticado, enfriado, deglutido.

He was always smoothing and polishing himself, and in the end he became blunt before he was sharp.

Wouldn't things look much better for the human race if we no longer had history, at least no political history? The human being then would act more in accordance with the energies he possesses at any given time; for as things stand today, the example that now and then makes one person better makes a thousand others worse.

A book which, above all others in the world, should be forbidden, is a catalogue of forbidden books.

Honest unaffected distrust of human abilities under all circumstances is the surest sign of strength of mind.

Man findet Spuren aller Wissenschaften in den Sprachen, und umgekehrt vieles in den Sprachen das in den Wissenschaften nützen kann.

You believe I run after the strange because I do not know the beautiful; no, it is because you do not know the beautiful that I seek the strange.

What concerns me alone I only think, what concerns my friends I tell them, what can be of interest to only a limited public I write, and what the world ought to know is printed...

Es asombrosa la cantidad de baratijas convencionales a las que recurrimos al expresarnos por impreso. La mayoría de los escritores asumen la expresión de quienes posan para el retrato de un pintor. Recorridos de la pose y el compromiso, escalón por escalón.

Man loves company — even if it is only that of a small burning candle.

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.

To make clever people believe we are what we are not is in most instances harder than really to become what we want to seem to be.

I believe that man is in the last resort so free a being that his right to be what he believes himself to be cannot be contested.

If we make a couple of discoveries here and there we need not believe things will go on like this for ever.... Just as we hit water when we dig in the earth, so we discover the incomprehensible sooner or later.

Do not commence your exercises in philosophy in those regions where an error can deliver you over to the executioner.