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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
Steps
Acknowledging
Goes
Embarrassment
Effort
Spare
Seeing
Spares
Often
Acquaintance
Back
Window
Done
Much
Step
More quotes by Georg C. Lichtenberg
One's first step in wisdom is to question everything - and one's last is to come to terms with everything.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
If all else fails, the character of a man can be recognized by nothing so surely as by a jest which he takes badly.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Actual aristocracy cannot be abolished by any law: all the law can do is decree how it is to be imparted and who is to acquire it.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
As nations improve, so do their gods.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
A vacuum of ideas affects people differently than a vacuum of air, otherwise readers of books would be constantly collapsing.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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 C. 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 C. Lichtenberg
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
What you have been obliged to discover by yourself leaves a path in your mind which you can use again when the need arises.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
A good metaphor is something even the police should keep an eye on.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
The motives that lead us to do anything might be arranged like the thirty-two winds and might be given names on the same pattern: for instance, bread-bread-fame or fame-fame-bread.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
The most successful tempters and thus the most dangerous are the deluded deluders.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
We have no words for speaking of wisdom to the stupid. He who understands the wise is wise already.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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
The world is a body common to all men, changes to it bring about a change in the souls of all men who are turned towards that part of it at that moment.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Everyone is a genius at least once a year.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
What is called an acute knowledge of human nature is mostly nothing but the observer's own weaknesses reflected back from others.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
The man was such an intellectual he was of almost no use.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
The fruits of philosophy are the important thing, not the philosophy itself. When we ask the time, we don't want to know how watches are made.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
