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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.

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
Make
Appear
People
Harder
Cases
Actually
Wish
Become
Character
Astute
Believe
Wishes

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To do the opposite of something is also a form of imitation, namely an imitation of its opposite.
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A good means to discovery is to take away certain parts of a system to find out how the rest behaves.
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Marriage, in contrast to the flu, starts with a fever and ends with the chills.
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The celebrated painter Gainsborough got as much pleasure from seeing violins as from hearing them.
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Diogenes, filthily attired, paced across the splendid carpets in Plato's dwelling. Thus, said he, do I trample on the pride of Plato. Yes, Plato replied, but only with another kind of pride.
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Honor is infinitely more valuable than positions of honor.
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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.
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I am always grieved when a man of real talent dies. The world needs such men more than Heaven does.
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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.
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Virtue by premeditation isn't worth much.
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In each of us there is a little of all of us.
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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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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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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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A good part of the fame of most celebrated men is due to the shortsightedness of their admirers
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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.
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The man was such an intellectual he was of almost no use.
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Why does a suppurating lung give so little warning and a sore on the finger so much?
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I am convinced we do not only love ourselves in others but hate ourselves in others too.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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Prejudices are so to speak the mechanical instincts of men: through their prejudices they do without any effort many things they would find too difficult to think through to the point of resolving to do them.
Georg C. Lichtenberg