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Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (July 1, 1742 – February 24, 1799) , scientist, philosopher, writer.

The entries here come from:
Lichtenberg, Georg Christoph, and Norman Alliston. The Reflections of Lichtenberg. Selected and Translated by Norman Alliston. 1908.

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How ever can mankind have come by the idea of liberty? It was a grand thought!

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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?

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

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So to manage one's reading and study that it shall be connected is a piece of advice which, although the advantage of it is not visible in my own work, I can nevertheless commend. Nor do I give it because I have often found it useful from experience, but because I see very clearly now that I ought to have followed it a point of view from which all precepts should be regarded.

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Our scholars fall into the same mistake as the provincial shopkeeper: they don't buy where the provisions grow, but prefer to let some Englishman or Frenchman supply them.

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Where the common people appreciate puns and often make them, one may safely take it that the nation is of a very high order of culture.

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If mankind suddenly took to virtue, many thousands would inevitably be reduced to starvation.

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Petitions have lost much of their power since the discovery of the art of writing, but commands, on the opposite hand, have gained in weight-a sorry balance, this. Written requests are more easily refused, and written commands more easily given than verbal. In both instances “heart” is required, and that often fails when the mouth is to be spokesman.

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One great advantage of writing is that what a man thinks and says may thus pass unfalsified to posterity.

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It is always a good sign when artists can often be hindered by trifles from the due performance of their art. F... used to dip his fingers into flour before playing the piano; and another great pianist could never be brought to perform if he had shortly before cut his nails. Such things do not disconcert the mediocre man, because his power of discrimination does not go so far; he has, as it were, a coarse sieve.

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When we see how titles are deteriorating in value, we might almost think that the world's stock of honour was increasing; just as when gold becomes too plentiful the value of money depreciates.

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Bad writers are mostly those who try to express their own feeble ideas in the language of good ones. If they could only say what they think in appropriate words, they would always contribute something towards the common fund, and deserve attention.

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Dreams lead us into circumstances and adventures in which when awake we cannot easily be involved; or again, they make us feel inconveniences which perhaps from a distance we had at first despised, but in which we were in the course of time actually involved. A dream may on this account often change our resolves, and confirm our moral basis to a greater extent than all the precepts that reach the heart by round-about ways.

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If dogs, wasps and hornets were gifted with human intelligence, they would possibly be able to make themselves masters of the world.

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It is a dangerous thing for the perfecting of our minds to gain applause by works that do not call forth the whole of our energies; for in that case one generally comes to a standstill. Hence Rochefoucauld was of opinion that no man had ever accomplished all that he could have accomplished; and for the reason given I hold that this'la; in the main true. All human beings have their quota of indolence, whereby they are especially inclined to do what comes easy to them.

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I am myself a believer in Helvetius' doctrine that “what we will we can do; but we do not will every- thing which we dispassionately wish that we could do." The kind of will here meant is irresistible passion, which hardly ever fails of the requisite capacity.

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The highest that a weak but experienced man can attain is a facility in finding out the weaknesses of better men.

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It is almost impossible to write anything of value without at the time having someone or a certain select audience in mind, to whom to address oneself. At any rate, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it greatly facilitates delivery.

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I have invariably found that, all else failing, a man's character can be deduced from nothing so surely as from a jest that he takes in bad part.

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True, unaffected distrust of human power in general is the surest sign of mental ability.

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To make the best of any given moment of life, favourable and unfavourable alike; to improve that moment, whether it be dealt us from Fortune's right hand or her left—this is the art of life and the true prerogative of a rational being.

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One may be competent, I think I shall be right in saying, to pronounce on some subject with accuracy and discretion, and yet, when pressed to give one's reasons, find oneself only able to produce such as the merest tyro in this kind of fencing can refute. The best and wisest of men are often as ignorant of this latter art as of the muscles by which they grasp anything or play the piano.

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I cannot, it is true, predict whether the situation will improve if things are altered; but this I can say, that things must be altered for the situation to improve.

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Those who suffer from any bodily infirmities try to show that they are not incommoded by them. The deaf would have it that they hear quite well; the club-footed man, that he can walk the roughest roads; the weak man tries to show off his strength, and so forth. The same is the case in many other respects. To authors this circumstance is an inexhaustible source of truths which touch others and prove a means of reaching the hearts of a multitude of readers.

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Were a person to collect all the happy thoughts he had ever had in his life, the result would be a valuable book. At least once a yea eveyone is a genius. It is only that the actual man of genius so-called has his good ideas at shorter intervals. We see, then, how much depends on making a note of everything.

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One great advantage of writing is that what a man thinks and says may thus pass unfalsified to posterity.

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A man ought never to say to himself: “ This subject is beyond me; it is one for an expert; I had better turn to something simpler." To do so is a weakness that may easily degenerate into complete inactivity. There is no subject for which we ought to consider ourselves not good enough.