339 Quotes by Georg C. Lichtenberg

There is something in the character of every man which cannot be broken in--the skeleton of his character; and to try to alter this is like training a sheep for draught purposes.

The writer who cannot sometimes throw away a thought about which another man would have written dissertations, without worry whether or not the reader will find it, will never become a great writer.

Doubt everything at least once, even the sentence "Two times two is four."

A man always writes absolutely well whenever he writes in his own manner, but the wigmaker who tries to write like Gellert ... writes badly.

It is almost impossible to carry the torch of truth through a crowd without singeing somebody's beard.

Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together.

Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit.

Knowledge acquired too rapidly and without being personally supplemented is never very productive.

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.