Quote

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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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
Endure
Stills
Advantage
Digest
Truth
Lies
Flavor
Still
Quite
Gained
Nothing
Lying
Deceit
Enough
Another
Mighty
Sometimes
True
Unable
Even
Truths
Would
Ends

More quotes by 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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Love is blind, but marriage restores its sight.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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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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Reason now gazes above the realm of the dark but warm feelings as the Alpine peaks do above the clouds. They behold the sun more clearly and distinctly, but they are cold and unfruitful.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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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
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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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What a blessing it would be if we could open and shut our ears...as easily as we open and shut our eyes.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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The American who first discovered Columbus made a bad discovery.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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To be content with life or to live merrily, rather all that is required is that we bestow on all things only a fleeting, superficial glance the more thoughtful we become the more earnest we grow.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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How happily some people would live if they troubled themselves as little about other people's business as about their own.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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There are people who can believe anything they wish. What lucky creatures!
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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Doubt everything at least once, even the sentence Two times two is four.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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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.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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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
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Universal morality is to be found in little everyday penny-events just as much as in great ones.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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To grow wiser means to learn to know better and better the faults to which this instrument with which we feel and judge can be subject.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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If you are going to build something in the air it is always better to build castles than houses of cards.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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The most dangerous untruths are truths slightly distorted.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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What most clearly characterizes true freedom and its true employment is its misemployment.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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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