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Religion
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Theologians always try to turn the Bible into a book without common sense.
-G. C. (Georg Christoph) Lichtenberg
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Rules
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There is no more important rule of conduct in the world than this: attach yourself as much as you can to people who are abler than you and yet not so very different that you cannot understand them.
-G. C. (Georg Christoph) Lichtenberg
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Scholars, Scholarship
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One cannot demand of a scholar that he show himself a scholar everywhere in society, but the whole tenor of his behavior must none the less betray the thinker, he must always be instructive, his way of judging a thing must even in the smallest matters be such that people can see what it will amount to when, quietly and self-collected, he puts this power to scholarly use.
-G. C. (Georg Christoph) Lichtenberg
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People often become scholars for the same reason they become soldiers: simply because they are unfit for any other station. Their right hand has to earn them a livelihood; one might say they lie down like bears in winter and seek sustenance from their paws.
-G. C. (Georg Christoph) Lichtenberg
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Science
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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.
-G. C. (Georg Christoph) Lichtenberg
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There is no greater impediment to progress in the sciences than the desire to see it take place too quickly.
-G. C. (Georg Christoph) Lichtenberg
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Self-love
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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.
-G. C. (Georg Christoph) Lichtenberg
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Simplicity
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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.
-G. C. (Georg Christoph) Lichtenberg
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Style
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Good taste is either that which agrees with my taste or that which subjects itself to the rule of reason. From this we can see how useful it is to employ reason in seeking out the laws of taste.
-G. C. (Georg Christoph) Lichtenberg
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Success & Failure
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Man can acquire accomplishments or he can become an animal, whichever he wants. God makes the animals, man makes himself.
-G. C. (Georg Christoph) Lichtenberg
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Suicide
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Here take back the stuff that I am, nature, knead it back into the dough of being, make of me a bush, a cloud, whatever you will, even a man, only no longer make me.
-G. C. (Georg Christoph) Lichtenberg
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Superiority
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The most perfect ape cannot draw an ape; only man can do that; but, likewise, only man regards the ability to do this as a sign of superiority.
-G. C. (Georg Christoph) Lichtenberg
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Talent
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The great rule: If the little bit you have is nothing special in itself, at least find a way of saying it that is a little bit special.
-G. C. (Georg Christoph) Lichtenberg
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Teaching
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A schoolteacher or professor cannot educate individuals, he educates only species.
-G. C. (Georg Christoph) Lichtenberg
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Most subjects at universities are taught for no other purpose than that they may be re-taught when the students become teachers.
-G. C. (Georg Christoph) Lichtenberg
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Temptation
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The most successful tempters and thus the most dangerous are the deluded deluders.
-G. C. (Georg Christoph) Lichtenberg
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Things, Little Things
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The human tendency to regard little things as important has produced very many great things.
-G. C. (Georg Christoph) Lichtenberg
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Time
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People who never have any time on their hands are those who do the least.
-G. C. (Georg Christoph) Lichtenberg
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Vanity
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He who is enamored of himself will at least have the advantage of being inconvenienced by few rivals.
-G. C. (Georg Christoph) Lichtenberg
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Virtue
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Virtue by premeditation isn't worth much.
-G. C. (Georg Christoph) Lichtenberg
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Wisdom
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We have no words for speaking of wisdom to the stupid. He who understands the wise is wise already.
-G. C. (Georg Christoph) Lichtenberg
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He swallowed a lot of wisdom, but all of it seems to have gone down the wrong way.
-G. C. (Georg Christoph) Lichtenberg
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Worry
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The worst thing you can possibly do is worrying and thinking about what you could have done.
-G. C. (Georg Christoph) Lichtenberg
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Books by and about G. C. (Georg Christoph) Lichtenberg