Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
The American who first discovered Columbus made a bad discovery.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
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
Columbus
Discovered
Discovery
American
Firsts
First
Made
More quotes by Georg C. Lichtenberg
One of the greatest creations of the human mind is the art of reviewing books without having read them.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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
We are obliged to regard many of our original minds as crazy at least until we have become as clever as they are.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Marriage, in contrast to the flu, starts with a fever and ends with the chills.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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
Man is perhaps half mind and half matter in the same way as the polyp is half plant and half animal. The strangest creatures are always found on the border lines of species.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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
Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
A good means to discovery is to take away certain parts of a system to find out how the rest behaves.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
The ordinary man is ruined by the flesh lusting against the spirit the scholar by the spirit lusting too much against the flesh.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Propositions on which all men are in agreement are true: if they are not true we have no truth at all.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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
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
We have no words for speaking of wisdom to the stupid. He who understands the wise is wise already.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
How happily some people would live if they troubled themselves as little about other people's business as about their own.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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
A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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
Whenever he composes a critical review, I have been told, he gets an enormous erection.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Before one blames, one should always find out whether one cannot excuse. To discover little faults has been always the particularity of such brains that are a little or not at all above the average. The superior ones keep quiet or say something against the whole and the great minds transform without blaming.
Georg C. Lichtenberg