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Be attentive, feel nothing in vain, measure and compare: this is the whole law of philosophy.

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
Feels
Vain
Measure
Advice
Philosophy
Law
Nothing
Whole
Attentive
Feel
Compare

More quotes by 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.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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What you have been obliged to discover by yourself leaves a path in your mind which you can use again when the need arises.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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The ordinary man is ruined by the flesh lusting against the spirit the scholar by the spirit lusting too much against the flesh.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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The excuses we make to ourselves when we want to do something are excellent material for soliloquies, for they are rarely made except when we are alone, and are very often made aloud.
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 clever child brought up with a foolish one can itself become foolish. Man is so perfectible and corruptible he can become a fool through good sense.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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If another Messiah was born he could hardly do so much good as the printing-press.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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There are people who can believe anything they wish. What lucky creatures!
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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Affectation is a very good word when someone does not wish to confess to what he would none the less like to believe of himself.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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The American who first discovered Columbus made a bad discovery.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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I am confident of my ability to demonstrate that one can sometimes believe in something and yet not believe in it. Nothing is less fathomable than the systems that motivate our actions.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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A good metaphor is something even the police should keep an eye on.
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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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.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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As nations improve, so do their gods.
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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Every condition of the soul has its own sign and expression...So you will see how hard it is to seem original without being so.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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To see every day how people get the name 'genius' just as the wood-lice in the cellar the name 'millipede'-not because they have that many feet, but because most people don't want to count to 14-this has had the result that I don't believe anyone any more without checking.
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.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
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The most dangerous untruths are truths slightly distorted.
Georg C. Lichtenberg