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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.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

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Georg C. Lichtenberg
Age: 56 †
Born: 1742
Born: July 1
Died: 1799
Died: February 24
Astronomer
French Moralist
Mathematician
Philosopher
Physicist
Scientist
University Teacher
Writer
København
Much
Step
Steps
Goes
Acknowledging
Effort
Embarrassment
Seeing
Spare
Often
Spares
Back
Acquaintance
Done
Window

More quotes by Georg C. Lichtenberg

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He who says he hates all kinds of flattery, and says so in earnest, has undoubtedly not as yet become acquainted with all kinds of it, whether in substance or in form.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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To see every day how people get the name 'genius' just as the wood-lice in the cellar the name 'millipede'-not because they have that many feet, but because most people don't want to count to 14-this has had the result that I don't believe anyone any more without checking.
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The girl who reveals herself heart and soul to her friend reveals the secrets of the entire sex for every girl is the guardian of the feminine mysteries.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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Delicacy in woman is strength.
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A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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The most heated defenders of a science, who cannot endure the slightest sneer at it, are commonly those who have not made very much progress in it and are secretly aware of this defect.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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It is almost everywhere the case that soon after it is begotten the greater part of human wisdom is laid to rest in repositories.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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It is a question whether, when we break a murderer on the wheel, we do not fall into the error a child makes when it hits the chair it has bumped into.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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Never trust a man who lays his hand on his heart when he assures you of anything.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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Man is so perfectable and corruptible he can become a fool through good sense.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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The rules of grammar are mere human statutes, which is why when he speaks out of the possessed the Devil himself speaks bad Latin.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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He who says he hates every kind of flattery, and says it in earnest, certainly does not yet know every kind of flattery.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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I am confident of my ability to demonstrate that one can sometimes believe in something and yet not believe in it. Nothing is less fathomable than the systems that motivate our actions.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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The great trick of regarding small departures from the truth as the truth itself - on which is founded the entire integral calculus - is also the basis of our witty speculations, where the whole thing would often collapse if we considered the departures with philosophical rigour.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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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 C. Lichtenberg
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The worst thing you can possibly do is worrying and thinking about what you could have done.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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A book which, above all others in the world, should be forbidden, is a catalogue of forbidden books.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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It is a dangerous thing for the perfecting of our minds to gain applause by works that do not call forth the whole of our energies for in that case one generally comes to a standstill.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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How happily some people would live if they troubled themselves as little about other people's business as about their own.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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Here take back the stuff that I am, nature, knead it back into the dough of being, make of me a bush, a cloud, whatever you will, even a man, only no longer make me.
Georg C. Lichtenberg