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

More quotes by 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.
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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.
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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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One of the greatest creations of the human mind is the art of reviewing books without having read them.
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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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People who never have any time on their hands are those who do the least.
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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
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We say that someone occupies an official position, whereas it is the official position that occupies him.
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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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Those who never have time do least
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He who knows himself properly can very soon learn to know all other men. It is all reflection.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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The celebrated painter Gainsborough got as much pleasure from seeing violins as from hearing them.
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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A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.
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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There are people who possess not so much genius as a certain talent for perceiving the desires of the century, or even of the decade, before it has done so itself.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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Is it not strange that mankind should so willingly battle for religion and so unwillingly live according to its precepts?
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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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.
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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A book is a mirror: if an ape looks into it an apostle is hardly likely to look out.
Georg C. Lichtenberg