Quotes by George Lichtenberg

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I can't say for sure that everything will be better if it's different, but I can definitely say that everything has to be different if we want it to be better.

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He who tries to do everything at once, does nothing.

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Do not be too upset if someone has accused you unfairly, because sometimes you are praised for no reason.

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If there are no other means, you cannot better understand a man's character by testing him with the joke that upsets him the most.

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Before you judge someone, you must see if it is not possible to find a justification for them.

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To turn a fool into a wise man is as difficult as turning lead into gold.

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Bad people win when you know them better and good people lose.

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Pretending to be more learned than necessary is one of the signs of stupidity.

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The first step of wisdom is to attack everything, the second - to bear everything.

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The common feeling of shame is always a sincere feeling. You feel it when a very popular man, not knowing who he wants to pose for, becomes ridiculous.

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It is sad that people's intention to lessen evil produces even more evil.

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The search for small faults is the eternal characteristic of minds that either rise little above mediocrity or not at all. Great minds are silent or unresponsive to the whole, and truly great minds go about their business without judging anyone.

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You must ask people for services according to your possibilities, and not according to your own wishes.

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Of what a man ought to be, even the best of men know nothing for sure; in relation to what exactly he is, one can judge according to each individual.

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Servant gestures are not always made by slaves.

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The modest is harder for me to tolerate than the boastful. The boastful man recognizes the qualities of the one to whom he boasts, but the modest man despises the one to whom he demonstrates his modesty.

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I know what attention looks like in the eyes of the world: it is the highest degree of nonsense.

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To see something new, you have to do something new.

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Why it shouldn't be an ideal maxim: Strive to find out the truth - this is always worthwhile, even if you go astray along the way.

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Doubt everything, even just once, and do not exclude the axiom that "two and two make four" from the process.

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A man's mind is to be judged by the care with which he considers the future or the result of his activity.

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Loneliness must be sought in big cities.

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The man in love with himself has an advantage - he does not have many competitors.

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What seems strange to us rarely remains unexplained.

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Where once were the frontiers of science is now its center.

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How strange: it always rains right when we're at the market or hanging out the laundry, and the most needed item is in the farthest pocket.

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Compassion is a weaker kind of mercy.

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Doubt must mean only vigilance, otherwise it becomes dangerous.

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Hiding your shortcomings doesn't mean you'll become better; our authority only increases when we recognize our shortcomings.

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Are we not making the same mistake by wheeling a murderer as the child who hits the chair he accidentally bumped into?

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Do not form too sophisticated an impression of the man, but judge him simply; consider him neither too good nor too bad.

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Isn't it strange that people so often fight for religion, but so rarely live up to its requirements?

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An indisputable indication of a good book is that it becomes more interesting as one grows older.

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Do not deviate even a day from the pursued goal - here is the way to extend the time, even a genuine way, but which is very difficult to use.

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Nothing is so superficially judged as a person's character. Nowhere is the whole less valued than in this case, and it is precisely in this that the essence of a character consists.

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He who has less than he wants must know that he has more than he deserves.

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You don't have to go to bed before remembering what you learned during the day. What I understand by the word "learned" refers to trying to broaden your horizons of science with some useful knowledge.

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Weaknesses stop harming us the moment we are aware of them.

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Our abilities are developing more and more, and eventually it is possible that man will be able to accomplish anything without realizing that he is turning into a thinking animal. Rationality brings us closer to the animal state.

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Living against your will is a terrible thing, but even more terrible would be to become immortal without wanting it.

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The universal source of our happiness is the belief that the things around us are as we think they are.

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The grave is the most solid fortress that can protect us from the blows of destiny.

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Ten sentences that affected the reason are easier to bear than one sentence that affected the heart.

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If you see yourself through someone else's eyes, you not only end up loving yourself, but also end up hating yourself.

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The supreme happiness, for which I pray to heaven every day, is to be surpassed in knowledge only by wise and virtuous men.

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The word "erudite" sometimes only carries the idea that someone has been highly educated, but not that he has learned anything.

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Rapid accumulation of knowledge without personal participation in the process of its accumulation is not effective. And erudition can produce only leaves and no fruit.

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I thank God for making me an atheist.

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A mediocre man always adapts to the prevailing opinion and the prevailing fashion, and considers the present state of affairs the only possible one, and relates passively to everything.

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True freedom is best characterized by abuses of freedom.

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Each of us has our own way of making mistakes, mostly because mistakes are often the result of misunderstanding.

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Education is a kind of birth.

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Knowing concretely that no one is completely happy is perhaps the shortest path to happiness.

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We live in a world where a fool produces more fools, so how many wise men does a learned one produce.

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Many believe that virtue consists in regretting mistakes rather than correcting them.

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The world exists not to be known, but to be educated in it.

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The man who never has time generally does nothing.

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As is the master, so is the servant.

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He who understands nothing but chemistry does not understand chemistry well enough.

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Do people blush in the dark? I'm pretty sure they do it when they get scared, but at first I doubt it. Because they blush only for themselves, but they blush for themselves as well as for others.

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The book is a mirror. If a monkey looks into it, the reflection cannot be of a man.

"Instead of saying that the world is reflected in our intellect, it is better to say that our intellect is reflected in the world."

"The question is whether the intellectual one, without the heart, can understand God. The truth is that if our heart understands God our intellect will then start to seek Him."

"I cannot stop thinking that I was dead before I was born, and at my death I will return to the same state."

"Reading too much is harmful to your independence of thought. The greatest thinkers I’ve met among scholars are people who do not read too much."

"The title "scholar” suggests that a person has gone to school, and that he studied, but it does not mean that he has acquired any truly important knowledge."

"Man, whose teacher is nature, should not be a piece of wax on which an elevated image of some professor is to be carved."

"The truth should often overcome thousands of obstacles, until it is accepted."

"Too voracious reading, begun at too early an age, fills our minds with undigested material. Our memory can become the master of our feelings and our fate; and when it does, an intellectual effort is required to reinforce our feelings with primeval innocence, to find ourselves amidst the dusty heaps of foreign thoughts and viewpoints, in order to start feeling by ourselves, and - I am ready to say - in order to live on our own."

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Every mistake looks incredibly stupid when someone else makes it.

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You can't carry the torch of truth through a crowd without burning someone's beard.

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You can make a living from fortune-telling, but even less so from telling the truth.

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Of course, I can't say whether things will be better if they change, but I know this for sure: in order for anything to be better, change is always necessary.

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For most people, disbelief in one thing comes from blind faith in another.