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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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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
Even
Immortal
Ghastly
Things
Burden
Penny
Would
However
Suspended
Cutting
Pennies
Terrible
Dreadful
Two
Knife
Live
Knives
Whole
Thread

More quotes by 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.
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A book is a mirror: if an ape looks into it an apostle is hardly likely to look out.
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To make a vow is a greater sin than to break one.
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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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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.
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People who never have any time on their hands are those who do the least.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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The rules of grammar are mere human statutes, which is why when he speaks out of the possessed the Devil himself speaks bad Latin.
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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.
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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.
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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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It often takes more courage to change one's opinion than to stick to it.
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One use of dreams is that, unprejudiced by our often forced and artificial reflections, they represent the impartial outcome of our entire being.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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Ideas too are a life and a world.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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Those who have racked their brains to discover new proofs have perhaps been induced to do so by a compulsion they could not quite explain to themselves. Instead of giving us their new proofs they should have explained to us the motivation that constrained them to search for them.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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We judge nothing so hastily as character, and yet there is nothing over which we should be more cautious.... I have always found that the so-called bad people improve on closer acquaintance, while the good fall off.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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What makes our poetry so contemptible nowadays is its paucity of ideas. If you want to be read, invent. Who the Devil wouldn't like to read something new?
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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There are very many people who read simply to prevent themselves from thinking.
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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Nothing makes one old so quickly as the ever-present thought that one is growing older.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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Everyone is a genius at least once a year.
Georg C. Lichtenberg