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We have to believe that everything has a cause, as the spider spins its web in order to catch flies. But it does this before it knows there are such things as flies.

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
Cause
Causes
Science
Order
Spins
Doe
Spider
Everything
Spiders
Believe
Flies
Things
Catch

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One has to do something new in order to see something new.
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I look upon book reviews as an infantile disease which new-born books are subject to.
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A good part of the fame of most celebrated men is due to the shortsightedness of their admirers
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It often takes more courage to change one's opinion than to stick to it.
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One's first step in wisdom is to question everything - and one's last is to come to terms with everything.
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The fly that doesn't want to be swatted is most secure when it lights on the fly-swatter.
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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.
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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.
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Do not commence your exercises in philosophy in those regions where an error can deliver you over to the executioner.
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There are people who can believe anything they wish. What lucky creatures!
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Libraries can in general be too narrow or too wide for the soul.
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With a pen in my hand I have successfully stormed bulwarks from which others armed with sword and excommunication have been repulsed.
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A book which, above all others in the world, should be forbidden, is a catalogue of forbidden books.
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That man is the noblest creature may also be inferred from the fact that no other creature has yet contested this claim.
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Delicacy in woman is strength.
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Actual aristocracy cannot be abolished by any law: all the law can do is decree how it is to be imparted and who is to acquire it.
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A vacuum of ideas affects people differently than a vacuum of air, otherwise readers of books would be constantly collapsing.
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What is called an acute knowledge of human nature is mostly nothing but the observer's own weaknesses reflected back from others.
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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.
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There exists a species of transcendental ventriloquism by means of which men can be made to believe that something said on earth comes from Heaven.
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