The best way to praise either the living or the dead is to excuse their faults, and therein to apply your utmost knowledge of human nature. No romancing about virtues that they never possessed -- whatever you do! That spoils everything, and makes even what is true suspicious. Besides, to excuse mistakes is to commend oneself.

#GeorgChristophLichtenberg

We are a great deal more certain that our will is free than that everything that happens is bound to have a cause. This being the case, could we not for once in a way reverse the argument, and say: Our ideas of cause and effect must be very inaccurate, for were they right, our will could not be free?

#GeorgChristophLichtenberg

I know that look of affected attentiveness: it is the lowest point of distraction.

#GeorgChristophLichtenberg

Tradition takes something from every tongue that speeds it, and may at length put the facts in such a a way as to be unrecognizable. It is always a translation.

#GeorgChristophLichtenberg

There are a number of minor moral deceptions which we practice without thinking them of much harm; just as, for instance, we smoke tobacco in similar indifference to our health.

#GeorgChristophLichtenberg

Never trust a man who lays his hand on his heart when he assures you of anything.

#GeorgChristophLichtenberg

Take care that you do not by chance get into a position for which you are unqualified. Nothing is so dangerous as this, or more easily destroys peace of mind. Nay, it has the worst influence on a man's honesty, and generally ends in complete discredit.

#GeorgChristophLichtenberg

The ages when people begin to study the rules by which other ages managed to accomplish such great things, are ages in a poor way. Instead of havir good digestions and keen powers of invention, the best minds become terribly well - read, pale, consumptive stay-at-homes.

#GeorgChristophLichtenberg

Lessing's avowal that he had read almost too much for his good sense proves how good his sense was.

#GeorgChristophLichtenberg

What I dislike in the method of treating history is that people see purpose in every action and trace every event to some intention or other. That is assuredly all wrong. The greatest events come to pass without any design; chance makes blunders good, and amplifies the most cleverly-laid scheme. The important events in the world are not deliberately brought about; they occur.

#GeorgChristophLichtenberg

If fishes are dumb, fishwives make up for it by being all the more talkative.

#GeorgChristophLichtenberg

It is in most cases more difficult to make intelligent people believe that you are what you are not, than really to become what you would appear to be.

#GeorgChristophLichtenberg

I hardly think it possible to show that we are the work of a Supreme Being, and not, much more probably, creatures made for amusement's sake by a very imperfect one.

#GeorgChristophLichtenberg

What astonished him was that cats should have two holes cut in their coats exactly at the places where their eyes were.

#GeorgChristophLichtenberg

There is a certain class of people of a vain though otherwise harmless disposition, who are always talking about their honesty -- almost as if they were pursuing it as a profession -- and know how to whimper over their merits with so ostentatious a modesty that one fairly loses patience with these ever-dunning creditors.

#GeorgChristophLichtenberg

Exercise your abilities. What at present costs trouble will at last come to you mechanically.

#GeorgChristophLichtenberg

I have never yet met anyone who did not think it an agreeable sensation to cut tinfoil with scissors.

#GeorgChristophLichtenberg

This world of ours will in time attain to such nicety that it will be just as ridiculous to believe in a God as it now is to believe in ghosts.

#GeorgChristophLichtenberg

As regards our religion, we Protestants imagine ourselves to be living in very enlightened times. What would happen if a new Luther were to arise? Perhaps in time to come the so-called Dark Ages may include our own. It is easier to alter the direction of the wind, or to stop it blowing, than to bind the sentiments of mankind.

#GeorgChristophLichtenberg

Could people but see the notebooks and memoranda from which immortal works have often arisen (and here I enjoy the confidence of certain authors who have made no little stir), it would certainly afford thousands the greatest consolation. As this, however, cannot well be managed, we must learn to judge of others by ourselves. A man should deem no one over-great, but firmly believe all imperishable works to have been the fruit of industry and strenuous attention.

#GeorgChristophLichtenberg