Quote

Man…who lives in three places – in the past, in the present, and in the future – can be unhappy if one of these three is worthless. Religion has even added a fourth – eternity.

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
Lives
Added
Three
Fourth
Past
Unhappy
Even
Eternity
Men
Places
Present
Future
Religion
Worthless

More quotes by Georg C. Lichtenberg

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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
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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.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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A good part of the fame of most celebrated men is due to the shortsightedness of their admirers
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.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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One has to do something new in order to see something new.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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He who understands the wise is wise already.
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A good metaphor is something even the police should keep an eye on.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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The noble simplicity in the works of nature only too often originates in the noble shortsightedness of him who observes it.
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We are obliged to regard many of our original minds as crazy at least until we have become as clever as they are.
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Many a man who is willing to be shot for his belief in a miracle would have doubted, had he been present at the miracle itself.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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The Greeks possessed a knowledge of human nature we seem hardly able to attain to without passing through the strengthening hibernation of a new barbarism.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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To live when you do not want to is dreadful, but it would be even more terrible to be immortal when you did not want to be. As things are, however, the whole ghastly burden is suspended from me by a thread which I can cut in two with a penny-knife.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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Man is a masterpiece of creation, if only because no amount of determinism can prevent him from believing that he acts as a free being.
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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No despotism is so formidable as that of a religion or a scientific system.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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It is too bad if you have to do everything upon reflection and can't do anything from early habit.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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Propositions on which all men are in agreement are true: if they are not true we have no truth at all.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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All mathematical laws which we find in Nature are always suspect to me, in spite of their beauty. They give me no pleasure. They are merely auxiliaries. At close range it is all not true.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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Nothing reveals a man's character better than the kind of joke at which he takes offense.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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It is almost impossible to carry the torch of truth through a crowd without singeing somebody's beard.
Georg C. Lichtenberg