Quote

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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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
Makes
Error
Children
Errors
Bumped
Murder
Murderer
Question
Hits
Break
Wheel
Child
Chair
Whether
Chairs
Fall
Wheels

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A clever child brought up with a foolish one can itself become foolish. Man is so perfectible and corruptible he can become a fool through good sense.
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As nations improve, so do their gods.
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People who never have any time on their hands are those who do the least.
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Many things about our bodies would not seem to us so filthy and obscene if we did not have the idea of nobility in our heads.
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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.
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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.
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One use of dreams is that, unprejudiced by our often forced and artificial reflections, they represent the impartial outcome of our entire being.
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If all mankind were suddenly to practice honesty, many thousands of people would be sure to starve.
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He who understands the wise is wise already.
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The excuses we make to ourselves when we want to do something are excellent material for soliloquies, for they are rarely made except when we are alone, and are very often made aloud.
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He who knows himself properly can very soon learn to know all other men. It is all reflection.
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The fly that doesn't want to be swatted is most secure when it lights on the fly-swatter.
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To make astute people believe one is what one is not is, in most cases, harder than actually to become what one wishes to appear.
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After all, is our idea of God anything more than personified incomprehensibility?
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As I take up my pen I feel myself so full, so equal to my subject, and see my book so clearly before me in embryo, I would almost like to try to say it all in a single word.
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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.
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Before one blames, one should always find out whether one cannot excuse.
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When a book and a head collide and a hollow sound is heard, must it always have come from the book?
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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.
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The highest level than can be reached by a mediocre but experienced mind is a talent for uncovering the weaknesses of those greater than itself.
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