Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

"A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents. "

"Actual aristocracy cannot be abolished by any law all the law can do is decree how it is to be imparted and who is to acquire it. "

"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. "

"Before we blame, we should first see if we can't excuse. "

"Don't judge a man by his opinions, but what his opinions have made of him. "

"Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together. "

"First there is a time when we believe everything, then for a little while we believe with discrimination, then we believe nothing whatever, and then we believe everything again - and, moreover, give reasons why we believe. "

"He was then in his fifty-fourth year, when even in the case of poets reason and passion begin to discuss a peace treaty and usually conclude it not very long afterwards. "

"He who is in love with himself has at least this advantage he won't encounter many rivals. "

"I am always grieved when a man of real talent dies, for the world needs such men more than heaven does. "

"I cannot say whether things will get better if we change what I can say is they must change if they are to get better. "

"It is in the gift for employing all the vicissitudes of life to one's own advantage and to that of one's craft that a large part of genius consists. "

"Man can acquire accomplishments or he can become an animal, whichever he wants. God makes the animals, man makes himself. "

"Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all. "

"One's first step in wisdom is to question everything - and one's last is to come to terms with everything. "

"Perhaps in time the so-called Dark Ages will be thought of as including our own. "

"The sure conviction that we could if we wanted to is the reason so many good minds are idle. "

"There are people who think that everything one does with a serious face is sensible. "

"To do just the opposite is also a form of imitation. "

"To read means to borrow to create out of one's readings is paying off one's debts. "

"To receive applause for works which do not demand all our powers hinders our advance towards a perfecting of our spirit. It usually means that thereafter we stand still. "

"What a blessing it would be if we could open and shut our ears as easily as we open and shut our eyes "

"With most men, unbelief in one thing springs from blind belief in another. "