Quote

Pain warns us not to exert our limbs to the point of breaking them. How much knowledge would we not need to recognize this by the exercise of mere reason.

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
Reason
Limbs
Need
Breaking
Needs
Recognize
Much
Mere
Would
Exercise
Knowledge
Point
Warns
Pain
Exert

More quotes by Georg C. Lichtenberg

Image
They do not think, therefore they are not.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
Man is so perfectable and corruptible he can become a fool through good sense.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
The noble simplicity in the works of nature only too often originates in the noble shortsightedness of him who observes it.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
The journalists have constructed for themselves a little wooden chapel, which they also call the Temple of Fame, in which they put up and take down portraits all day long and make such a hammering you can't hear yourself speak.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
The most successful tempters and thus the most dangerous are the deluded deluders.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
God created man in His own image, says the Bible philosophers reverse the process: they create God in theirs.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
The girl who reveals herself heart and soul to her friend reveals the secrets of the entire sex for every girl is the guardian of the feminine mysteries.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
It is a question whether, when we break a murderer on the wheel, we do not fall into the error a child makes when it hits the chair it has bumped into.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
We have no words for speaking of wisdom to the stupid. He who understands the wise is wise already.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
Why does a suppurating lung give so little warning and a sore on the finger so much?
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
Diogenes, filthily attired, paced across the splendid carpets in Plato's dwelling. Thus, said he, do I trample on the pride of Plato. Yes, Plato replied, but only with another kind of pride.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
He who understands the wise is wise already.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
He who says he hates all kinds of flattery, and says so in earnest, has undoubtedly not as yet become acquainted with all kinds of it, whether in substance or in form.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
Be attentive, feel nothing in vain, measure and compare: this is the whole law of philosophy.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
The Greeks possessed a knowledge of human nature we seem hardly able to attain to without passing through the strengthening hibernation of a new barbarism.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
Nowadays three witty turns of phrase and a lie make a writer.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
I forget the greater part of what I read, but all the same it nourishes my mind.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
I am grateful that I am not as judgmental as all those censorious, self-righteous people around me. In each of us there is a little of all of us.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
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
Image
To read means to borrow to create out of one s readings is paying off one's debts.
Georg C. Lichtenberg