He was always smoothing and polishing himself, and in the end he became blunt before he was sharp.
~ Georg C. Lichtenberg - [Self-improvement]

To grow wiser means to learn to know better and better the faults to which this instrument with which we feel and judge can be subject.
~ Georg C. Lichtenberg - [Self-knowledge]

The noble simplicity in the works of nature only too often originates in the noble shortsightedness of him who observes it.
~ Georg C. Lichtenberg - [Simplicity]

Cautiousness in judgment is nowadays to be recommended to each and every one: if we gained only one incontestable truth every ten years from each of our philosophical writers the harvest we reaped would be sufficient.
~ Georg C. Lichtenberg - [Skepticism]

There are people who believe everything is sane and sensible that is done with a solemn face.
~ Georg C. Lichtenberg - [Solemnity]

Just as the performance of the vilest and most wicked deeds requires spirit and talent, so even the greatest demand a certain insensitivity which under other circumstances we would call stupidity.
~ Georg C. Lichtenberg - [Stupidity]

Here take back the stuff that I am, nature, knead it back into the dough of being, make of me a bush, a cloud, whatever you will, even a man, only no longer make me.
~ Georg C. Lichtenberg - [Suicide]

The most perfect ape cannot draw an ape; only man can do that; but, likewise, only man regards the ability to do this as a sign of superiority.
~ Georg C. Lichtenberg - [Superiority]

The great rule: If the little bit you have is nothing special in itself, at least find a way of saying it that is a little bit special.
~ Georg C. Lichtenberg - [Talent]

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.
~ Georg C. Lichtenberg - [Taste]

A schoolteacher or professor cannot educate individuals, he educates only species.
~ Georg C. Lichtenberg - [Teachers and Teaching]

Most subjects at universities are taught for no other purpose than that they may be re-taught when the students become teachers.
~ Georg C. Lichtenberg - [Teachers and Teaching]

The most successful tempters and thus the most dangerous are the deluded deluders.
~ Georg C. Lichtenberg - [Temptation]

Theologians always try to turn the Bible into a book without common sense.
~ Georg C. Lichtenberg - [Theology]

Delight at having understood a very abstract and obscure system leads most people to believe in the truth of what it demonstrates.
~ Georg C. Lichtenberg - [Theory]

Some theories are good for nothing except to be argued about.
~ Georg C. Lichtenberg - [Theory]

As the few adepts in such things well know, universal morality is to be found in little everyday penny-events just as much as in great ones. There is so much goodness and ingenuity in a raindrop that an apothecary wouldn't let it go for less than half-a-crown...
~ Georg C. Lichtenberg - [Things and Little Things]

The human tendency to regard little things as important has produced very many great things.
~ Georg C. Lichtenberg - [Things and Little Things]

Rational free spirits are the light brigade who go on ahead and reconnoiter the ground which the heavy brigade of the orthodox will eventually occupy.
~ Georg C. Lichtenberg - [Thoughts and Thinking]

People who never have any time on their hands are those who do the least.
~ Georg C. Lichtenberg - [Time and Time Management]