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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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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
Judgment
Skepticism
Truth
Gained
Every
Nowadays
Years
Harvest
Cautiousness
Would
Sufficient
Incontestable
Philosophical
Reaped
Ten
Recommended
Writers
Skeptic

More quotes by Georg C. Lichtenberg

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Some people feel with their heads and think with their hearts.
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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I forget the greater part of what I read, but all the same it nourishes my mind.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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The course of the seasons is a piece of clockwork, with a cuckoo to call when it is spring.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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One's first step in wisdom is to question everything - and one's last is to come to terms with everything.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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I forget most of what I read, just as I do most of what I have eaten, but I know that both contribute no less to the conservation of my mind and my body on that account.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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There is no more important rule of conduct in the world than this: attach yourself as much as you can to people who are abler than you and yet not so very different that you cannot understand them.
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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The motives that lead us to do anything might be arranged like the thirty-two winds and might be given names on the same pattern: for instance, bread-bread-fame or fame-fame-bread.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.
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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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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It is a sure evidence of a good book if it pleases us more and more as we grow older.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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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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Is it not strange that mankind should so willingly battle for religion and so unwillingly live according to its precepts?
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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One of our forefathers must have read a forbidden book.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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The world is a body common to all men, changes to it bring about a change in the souls of all men who are turned towards that part of it at that moment.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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If it were true what in the end would be gained? Nothing but another truth. Is this such a mighty advantage? We have enough old truths still to digest, and even these we would be quite unable to endure if we did not sometimes flavor them with lies.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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If this is philosophy it is at any rate a philosophy that is not in its right mind.
Georg C. Lichtenberg