339 Quotes by Georg C. Lichtenberg

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.

Cultivate that kind of knowledge which enables us to discover for ourselves in case of need that which others have to read or be told of.

They do not think, therefore they are not.

Be wary of passing the judgment: obscure. To find something obscure poses no difficult, elephants and poodles find many things obscure.

Popular presentation today is all too often that which puts the mob in a position to talk about something without understanding it.

Food probably has a very great influence on the condition of men. Wine exercises a more visible influence, food does it more slowly but perhaps just as surely. Who knows if a well-prepared soup was not responsible for the pneumatic pump or a poor one for a war?

It is hardly to be believed how spiritual reflections when mixed with a little physics can hold people's attention and give them a livelier idea of God than do the often ill-applied examples of his wrath.

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.

The fly that doesn't want to be swatted is most secure when it lights on the fly-swatter.