Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

"Many things about our bodies would not seem to us so filthy and obscene if we did not have the idea of nobility in our heads."

"He who says he hates every kind of flattery, and says it in earnest, certainly does not yet know every kind of flattery."

"The greatest events occur without intention playing any part in them; chance makes good mistakes and undoes the most carefully planned undertaking. The world's greatest events are not produced, they h…"

"A on his lips and not-A in his heart."

"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."

"The "second sight" possessed by the Highlanders in Scotland is actually a foreknowledge of future events. I believe they possess this gift because they don't wear trousers... That is also why in all c…"

"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."

"All mathematical laws which we find in Nature are always suspect to me, in spite of their beauty. They give me no pleasure. They are merely auxiliaries. At close range it is all not true."