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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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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
Truth
Result
Lice
Without
Genius
Cellar
Many
Feet
Cellars
Every
Name
Checking
Believe
Results
Measurement
People
Names
Wood
Anyone
Count
Science
Woods

More quotes by Georg C. Lichtenberg

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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
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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
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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 vacuum of ideas affects people differently than a vacuum of air, otherwise readers of books would be constantly collapsing.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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A man is never more serious than when he praise himself.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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Just as we outgrow a pair of trousers, we outgrow acquaintances, libraries, principles, etc., at times before they're worn out and times - and this is the worst of all - before we have new ones.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinion at all.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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If an angel were to tell us about his philosophy, I believe many of his statements might well sound like '2 x 2= 13'.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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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.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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The drive to propagate our race has also propagated a lot of other things
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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Man is a masterpiece of creation . . .
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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Ambition and suspicion always go together.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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As nations improve, so do their gods.
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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Cautiousness in judgment is nowadays to be recommended to each and every one: if we gained only one incontestable truth every ten years from each of our philosophical writers the harvest we reaped would be sufficient.
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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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.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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There is something in the character of every man which cannot be broken in--the skeleton of his character and to try to alter this is like training a sheep for draught purposes.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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Love is blind, but marriage restores its sight.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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After all, is our idea of God anything more than personified incomprehensibility?
Georg C. Lichtenberg