Quote

Man is a masterpiece of creation, if only because no amount of determinism can prevent him from believing that he acts as a free being.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

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
Free
Believe
Determinism
Men
Masterpiece
Prevent
Believing
Acts
Creation
Amount

More quotes by Georg C. Lichtenberg

Image
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
Image
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
Image
A good metaphor is something even the police should keep an eye on.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
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
Image
There were honest people long before there were Christians and there are, God be praised, still honest people where there are no Christians. It could therefore easily be possible that people are Christians because true Christianity corresponds to what they would have been even if Christianity did not exist.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
Do not commence your exercises in philosophy in those regions where an error can deliver you over to the executioner.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
Many things about our bodies would not seem to us so filthy and obscene if we did not have the idea of nobility in our heads.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
Many a man who is willing to be shot for his belief in a miracle would have doubted, had he been present at the miracle itself.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
Before one blames, one should always find out whether one cannot excuse.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
He who knows himself properly can very soon learn to know all other men. It is all reflection.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
I am always grieved when a man of real talent dies. The world needs such men more than Heaven does.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
The feeling of health can only be gained by sickness.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
A good means to discovery is to take away certain parts of a system to find out how the rest behaves.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
An hour-glass is a reminder not only of time's quick flight, but also of the dust to which we must at last return
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
Libraries can in general be too narrow or too wide for the soul.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
It is astonishing how much the word infinitely is misused: everything is infinitely more beautiful, infinitely better, etc. The concept must have something pleasing about it, or its misuse could not have become so general.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
That man is the noblest creature may also be inferred from the fact that no other creature has yet contested this claim.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
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
Image
One is rarely an impulsive innovator after the age of sixty, but one can still be a very fine orderly and inventive thinker. One rarely procreates children at that age, but one is all the more skilled at educating those who have already been procreated, and education is procreation of another kind.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
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