"What concerns me alone I only think, what concerns my friends I tell them, what can be of interest to only a limited public I write, and what the world ought to know is printed..."

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg Science See all quotes by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg →

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More by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

“Where the frontier of science once was is now the centre.”

“Do not commence your exercises in philosophy in those regions where an error can deliver you over to the executioner.”

“There were honest people long before there were Christians and there are, God be praised, still honest people where there are no Christians. It could therefore easily be possible that people are Christians because true Christianity corresponds to what they would have been even if Christianity did not exist.”

“There are very many people who read simply to prevent themselves from thinking.”

“There exists a species of transcendental ventriloquism by means of which men can be made to believe that something said on earth comes from Heaven.”

“The most successful tempters and thus the most dangerous are the deluded deluders.”

Resonant Thoughts

"When the mind was disgusted with the ways of the world, when obstructions were feared in the path of duty, when people became excited and lost their reason, when friends lost their spirit and suffered…"

— D. V. Gundappa

Literature1887–1975

#philosophy

"You know the tender side of my work. That side was always dominating me. I feel the joy of that tenderness most strongly when I think of a finch-nest with cobweb and lichen on a May-morning."

— Jan Mankes

Art1889–1920

#knowledge

"The hardest thing in the world to understand is income taxes."

— Albert Einstein

Science1879–1955

#knowledge

"One should know that jihad is an advantageous and beneficial institution. Mankind derives benefits from its advantages in various ways, just like rain, the advantages of which are imparted upon both p…"

— Syed Ahmad Barelvi

Military1786–1831

#knowledge