Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (German Philosopher, Physicist)

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–99) was a German philosopher, physicist, and an important figure in the German Enlightenment. A satirist and writer of aphorisms, he is best known, apart from an experiment in xerographic electricity, for his derision of metaphysical and romantic extravagances.

Born in Ober-Ramstadt, near Darmstadt, State of Hesse, Lichtenberg was crippled by an accident in childhood. He was the 17th child of a Protestant pastor, who trained him in mathematics and the natural sciences. In 1763, Georg entered Göttingen University, where he taught until his death.

Lichtenberg researched geophysics, volcanology, meteorology, chemistry, astronomy, and mathematics. His most important studies were his experimentations into physics. Specifically, he constructed a massive electrophorus in 1777 and discovered the central principle of modern xerographic copying; the images that he reproduced are still termed “Lichtenberg figures.”

A satirist and humorist, Lichtenberg was one of the sharpest intellectuals and prose writers of the eighteenth century. Although Lichtenberg wrote no major creative works, he is well known for his brilliant satire on the Swiss philosopher Johann Kaspar Lavater’s Physiognomische Fragmente, appearing under the title Über Physiognomik, wider die Physiognomen (1778.)

Throughout his adult life, Lichtenberg kept notebooks he called Sudelbücher (“waste books.”) In them, he recorded quotations, sketched, and made brief observations on a variety of subjects from science to philosophy. First published posthumously in 1800–06, they became his best-known work and built his repute as an aphorist. Selections from the Sudelbücher were published in English as The Waste Books (2000.)

More: Wikipedia READ: Works by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

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.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Topics: Contentment

It often takes more courage to change one’s opinion than to stick to it.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Topics: Opinion, Change

In each of us there is a little of all of us.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Topics: People

We have no words for speaking of wisdom to the stupid. He who understands the wise is wise already.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Topics: Wisdom

Man loves company even if it is only that of a small burning candle.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Topics: Solitude

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.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Topics: Philosophers, Science, Philosophy

We say that someone occupies an official position, whereas it is the official position that occupies him.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Topics: Politics

Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Topics: Learning

The American who first discovered Columbus made a bad discovery.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Topics: Discovery

A schoolteacher or professor cannot educate individuals, he educates only species.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Topics: Teaching, Teachers

Before we blame we should first see whether we cannot excuse.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Topics: Liberalism

He swallowed a lot of wisdom, but all of it seems to have gone down the wrong way.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Topics: Wisdom

He was then in his fifty-fourth year, when even in the case of poets reason and passion begin to discuss a peace treaty and usually conclude it not very long afterwards.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Topics: Age, Aging

With most people, unbelief in one thing is founded upon blind belief in another.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Topics: Beliefs, Belief

It is no great art to say something briefly when, like Tacitus, one has something to say; when one has nothing to say, however, and none the less writes a whole book and makes truth into a liar—that I call an achievement.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Topics: Brevity

To err is human also in so far as animals seldom or never err, or at least only the cleverest of them do so.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Topics: Mistakes

Everyone is a genius at least once a year; a real genius has his original ideas closer together.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

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.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Topics: Stupidity

To many people virtue consists chiefly in repenting faults, not in avoiding them.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Topics: Virtue

A vacuum of ideas affects people differently than a vacuum of air, otherwise readers of books would be constantly collapsing.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Topics: Books, Reading

I am convinced we do not only love ourselves in others but hate ourselves in others too.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Topics: People

I have clearly noticed that often I have one opinion when I lie down and another one when I stand up, especially when I have eaten little and when I am tired.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Topics: Eating

Astronomy is perhaps the science whose discoveries owe least to chance, in which human understanding appears in its whole magnitude, and through which man can best learn how small he is.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Topics: Science

We accumulate our opinions at an age when our understanding is at its weakest.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Topics: Opinions, Opinion

The great rule: If the little bit you have is nothing special in itself, at least find a way of saying it that is a little bit special.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Topics: Talent

The human tendency to regard little things as important has produced very many great things.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Topics: Little Things, Things

A clever child brought up with a foolish one can itself become foolish. Man is so perfectible and corruptible he can become a fool through good sense.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Topics: Foolishness, Fools

He was always smoothing and polishing himself, and in the end he became blunt before he was sharp.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Topics: Self-improvement, Progress

He who is in love with himself has at least this advantage—he won’t encounter many rivals.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

If people should ever start to do only what is necessary millions would die of hunger.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Topics: Necessity

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