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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
Three
Fourth
Past
Unhappy
Even
Eternity
Men
Places
Present
Future
Religion
Worthless
Lives
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More quotes by Georg C. Lichtenberg

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Just as the performance of the vilest and most wicked deeds requires spirit and talent, so even the greatest demand a certain insensitivity which under other circumstances we would call stupidity.
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Marriage, in contrast to the flu, starts with a fever and ends with the chills.
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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.
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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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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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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.
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To read means to borrow to create out of one s readings is paying off one's debts.
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The drive to propagate our race has also propagated a lot of other things
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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.
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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We say that someone occupies an official position, whereas it is the official position that occupies him.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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Love is blind, but marriage restores its sight.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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There are very many people who read simply to prevent themselves from thinking.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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Every man has his moral backside which he refrains from showing unless he has to and keeps covered as long as possible with the trousers of decorum.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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If it is permissible to write plays that are not intended to be seen, I should like to see who can prevent me from writing a book no one can read.
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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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.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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The greater part of human misery is caused by indolence.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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I made the journey to knowledge like dogs who go for walks with their masters, a hundred times forward and backward over the same territory and when I arrived I was tired.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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The journalists have constructed for themselves a little wooden chapel, which they also call the Temple of Fame, in which they put up and take down portraits all day long and make such a hammering you can't hear yourself speak.
Georg C. Lichtenberg