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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

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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
Pleasure
Mathematical
Law
Math
True
Range
Nature
Mathematics
Give
Merely
Find
Laws
Suspect
Giving
Close
Suspects
Always
Beauty
Spite

More quotes by Georg C. Lichtenberg

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I am always grieved when a man of real talent dies. The world needs such men more than Heaven does.
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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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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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
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The fly that doesn't want to be swatted is most secure when it lights on the fly-swatter.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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Everyone is a genius at least once a year.
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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Man is a masterpiece of creation if for no other reason than that, all the weight of evidence for determinism notwithstanding, he believes he has free will.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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It is a dangerous thing for the perfecting of our minds to gain applause by works that do not call forth the whole of our energies for in that case one generally comes to a standstill.
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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Never undertake anything for which you wouldn't have the courage to ask the blessings of heaven.
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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The most heated defenders of a science, who cannot endure the slightest sneer at it, are commonly those who have not made very much progress in it and are secretly aware of this defect.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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We have no words for speaking of wisdom to the stupid. He who understands the wise is wise already.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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To live when you do not want to is dreadful, but it would be even more terrible to be immortal when you did not want to be. As things are, however, the whole ghastly burden is suspended from me by a thread which I can cut in two with a penny-knife.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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It is almost everywhere the case that soon after it is begotten the greater part of human wisdom is laid to rest in repositories.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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In every man there is something of all men.
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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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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I am convinced we do not only love ourselves in others but hate ourselves in others too.
Georg C. Lichtenberg