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

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

More quotes by Georg C. Lichtenberg

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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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The noble simplicity in the works of nature only too often originates in the noble shortsightedness of him who observes it.
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In every man there is something of all men.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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A vacuum of ideas affects people differently than a vacuum of air, otherwise readers of books would be constantly collapsing.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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Prejudices are so to speak the mechanical instincts of men: through their prejudices they do without any effort many things they would find too difficult to think through to the point of resolving to do them.
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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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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I would give something to know for whose sake precisely those deeds were really done which report says were done for the fatherland.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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Never trust a man who lays his hand on his heart when he assures you of anything.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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It is astonishing how much the word infinitely is misused: everything is infinitely more beautiful, infinitely better, etc. The concept must have something pleasing about it, or its misuse could not have become so general.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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It is almost impossible to carry the torch of truth through a crowd without singeing somebody's beard.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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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
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Propositions on which all men are in agreement are true: if they are not true we have no truth at all.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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Universal morality is to be found in little everyday penny-events just as much as in great ones.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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The most successful tempters and thus the most dangerous are the deluded deluders.
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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One of our forefathers must have read a forbidden book.
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
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What concerns me alone I only think, what concerns my friends I tell them, what can be of interest to only a limited public I write, and what the world ought to know is printed.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinion at all.
Georg C. Lichtenberg