344 Quotes by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Propositions on which all men are in agreement are true: if they are not true we have no truth at all.

What is called an acute knowledge of human nature is mostly nothing but the observer’s own weaknesses reflected back from others.

Much reading has brought upon us a learned barbarism.

A good method of discovery is to imagine certain members of a system removed and then see how what is left would behave: for example, where would we be if iron were absent from the world: this is an old example.

There exists a species of transcendental ventriloquism by means of which men can be made to believe that something said on earth comes from Heaven.

We cannot remember too often that when we observe nature, and especially the ordering of nature, it is always ourselves alone we are observing.

If it were true what in the end would be gained Nothing but another truth. Is this such a mighty advantage We have enough old truths still to digest, and even these we would be quite unable to endure if we did not sometimes flavor them with lies.

Much can be inferred about a man from his mistress: in her one beholds his weaknesses and his dreams.

It is astonishing how much the word infinitely is misused: everything is infinitely more beautiful, infinitely better, etc. The concept must have something pleasing about it, or its misuse could not have become so general.