Quote

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

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
Trying
Alter
Every
Purposes
Something
Sheep
Men
Training
Like
Broken
Purpose
Draught
Cannot
Skeleton
Character
Skeletons

More quotes by Georg C. Lichtenberg

Image
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
Image
Never undertake anything unless you have the heart to ask Heaven's blessing on your undertaking.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
There can hardly be a stranger commodity in the world than books. Printed by people who don't understand them sold by people who don't understand them bound, criticized and read by people who don't understand them and now even written by people who don't understand them.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
Nowadays three witty turns of phrase and a lie make a writer.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
A good means to discovery is to take away certain parts of a system to find out how the rest behaves.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
What is the good of drawing conclusions from experience? I don't deny we sometimes draw the right conclusions, but don't we just as often draw the wrong ones?
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
The man was such an intellectual he was of almost no use.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
Before one blames, one should always find out whether one cannot excuse.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
He who knows himself properly can very soon learn to know all other men. It is all reflection.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
The motives that lead us to do anything might be arranged like the thirty-two winds and might be given names on the same pattern: for instance, bread-bread-fame or fame-fame-bread.
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
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
Image
If all else fails, the character of a man can be recognized by nothing so surely as by a jest which he takes badly.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
A good part of the fame of most celebrated men is due to the shortsightedness of their admirers
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
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
Image
Man is a masterpiece of creation, if only because no amount of determinism can prevent him from believing that he acts as a free being.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
A handful of soldiers is always better than a mouthful of arguments.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
Be attentive, feel nothing in vain, measure and compare: this is the whole law of philosophy.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
What most clearly characterizes true freedom and its true employment is its misemployment.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Image
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.
Georg C. Lichtenberg