Aphorisms and quotes by Georg Lichtenberg. Georg christoph lichtenberg biography g lichtenberg

On February 24, 1799, Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, German physicist and writer, died at the age of at 56. From the article:

"Biography from Wikipedia
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (German Georg Christoph Lichtenberg; July 1, 1742, Ober-Ramstadt - February 24, 1799, Göttingen) - German scientist and publicist. To the modern reader, Lichtenberg is best known for his aphorisms, published posthumously.

Biography and activities
Lichtenberg was born into the family of a village pastor. As a child, he developed a hump that stopped his growth and made him painful forever. He was a professor of physics and astronomy in Göttingen and a foreign honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. As a scientist, Lichtenberg became famous for his lectures on experimental physics, which he explained by experiments with the help of improved apparatus himself, and the discovery of electrical figures named after him (figures of Lichtenberg). It was he who introduced the designation of different types of electricity by the signs "+" and "-" (positive and negative voltage). This is the historical significance of Lichtenberg as a physicist. Before him, electricity had other designations - "glass" and "gutta-percha", "amber" and "woolen", etc., which created confusion.

As a critic and publicist, he approaches Lessing in latitude philosophical views and independence and subtlety of critical judgment. His "Explanations of Hogarth" and polemical articles and notes, in which he ironically castigates sentimental fantasies and all kinds of mysticism and quackery of the "storm and onslaught" era, as well as a number of small articles, witty and humorous, characterize Lichtenberg as a first-class humorist and satirist. , German Swift.

Lichtenberg's best satirical articles: "Timorus" and "Fragment von Schwänzen" - parodies of Lavater's dithyrambic and hyperbolic syllables; "On physiognomy against physiognomists" - an article directed against "Physionomics" by the same Lavater. Lichtenberg often joked about the corruption of the literary language and the works of imaginary "geniuses", for example, in "Vorschlag zu einem Orbis pictus", in "The Most Merciful Message of the Earth to the Moon", in "Consolation of the Unfortunate, Who Are Not Original Geniuses." From England, where he traveled twice, Lichtenberg wrote a number of interesting letters (to H.-Hr. Boyer). No less interesting and sympathetic is his own characterization, which he himself made shortly before his death. In A Detailed Explanatory Text to Hogarth's Prints (1791-1799), Lichtenberg's humor rose to a height worthy of Hogarth.

From a young age to the end of his life, Lichtenberg kept notebooks, to which, above all, he owes his posthumous literary fame.

Kant, already at the end of his life, valued Lichtenberg extremely highly, and his personal copy of "Aphorisms" was literally dotted with marks made alternately with red and now black pen. Schopenhauer considered Lichtenberg a thinker in the full sense of the word - thinking for himself, and not for the needs of the public. Nietzsche placed Aphorisms, along with Eckermann's Conversations on Goethe, at the very heart of the "treasury of German prose." In 1878, Wagner admitted that he saw in them an anticipation of his own theories ...
André Breton

Lichtenberg's Vermischte Schriften came out in Göttingen in 1800-1805; a more complete collection of works together with the Ausführliche Erklärungen der Hogarthschen Kupferstiche was published by the sons of Lichtenberg in 1844-1853.

Memory
In 1935, the International Astronomical Union named Lichtenberg a crater on the visible side of the moon.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, (1742-1799) satirist, literary, and art critic

Most people follow fashion rather than reason.

I'm afraid our overly caring upbringing might create a tribe of dwarfs for us.

The future must be in the present. This is called a plan. Without it, nothing in the world can be good.

The rapid accumulation of knowledge acquired with too little independent participation is not very fruitful. Learning also can only give birth to leaves without fruit.

Being human means not only possessing knowledge, but also doing for future generations what those who preceded us did for us.

The greatest happiness for which I ask heaven every day: may only reasonable and virtuous people surpass me in strength and knowledge.

Seeing yourself in others, you not only love yourself, but also hate.

Every person has something of all people.

He who is in love with himself in his love has at least the advantage that he will never have many rivals.

In many of the famous writer's writings, I would rather read what he crossed out than what he left behind.

Education is of a special kind.

The impression of ten sayings acting on the mind is easier to blot out than the impression of one acting on the heart.

In prophecy, the interpreter is often more important than the prophet himself.

A common source of our unhappiness is that we believe that things really are what we think they are.

There is something in the character of every person that cannot be broken: it is the backbone of character.

The main vocation of the writer is to bring people the truth, teach and educate them.

Pride, a noble passion, is not blind to its own shortcomings. This is what makes arrogance different.

Even the devil himself could not have desired more suitable people for himself than some of the so-called "godly".

The motto - to strive to find the truth - is a merit, even if you wander along this path.

A girl who opens her soul and body to her friend reveals the mysteries of the entire female sex.

Little people are chosen for the noise - drummers.

The only thing that was courageous in him, he could not find because of propriety.

If ever any Linnaeus arranged animals in accordance with their happiness, contentment with their position, then, apparently, some people would be behind donkeys and hunting dogs.

There are people who will not begin to hear before their ears are cut off.

There are people who believe that whatever is done with a serious air is reasonable.

There are people who are born with an attraction to evil.

There are a lot of people who read only in order not to think.

Living against one's will is disgusting; but it would be even more terrible to become immortal if you do not want to.

The golden rule: to judge a person not by his opinions, but by what these opinions make of him.

Apologizing for faults speaks in favor of the one praising.

Study everything not out of vanity, but for the sake of practical benefit.

Learning to visualize enough to imagine that no one is completely happy is, perhaps, the closest path to complete happiness.

Our weaknesses no longer harm us when we know them.

Not every original writes in an original way, and not all originals write originals.

Some scientists accumulate knowledge only to boast of it.

… Isn't the spirit of contradiction more beneficial in the end than the spirit of unity?

You should not trust a person who, while affirming something, puts his hand on his heart.

Are we making the mistake of hitting the chair that we come across when we wheel the killer?

Do not create for yourself a too tricky idea of \u200b\u200ba person, judge him simply; consider him neither too good nor too bad.

The sure sign of any good book is that you like it the more the older you get.

Is it not surprising that people so often fight for religion and are so reluctant to live by its dictates?

I have always met indomitable ambition and mistrust together.

Not for a single day to deviate from your goal is a means of prolonging time, and, moreover, a very sure means, although it is not easy to use it.

No invention has come so easily to man as the invention of heavenly life.

Nothing ages a person so quickly as the constant thought that he is getting old.

Nothing promotes peace of mind like a complete lack of one's own opinion.

Generally accepted opinions about what everyone considers to be a long-term affair most often deserve research.

One thing is definitely established: the Christian religion is defended rather by people who feed on it than by those who are convinced of its truth.

Beware of taking a post that is too much for you through chance, so as not to seem like what you are not.

Wits and quirks should be used with the same care as all things that can rust.

People should be asked for services according to their capabilities, not according to our desire.

Even the best people know almost nothing reliable about what a person should be; about the same as it is, something can be learned from the example of each.

It is very sad that the desire of people to reduce evil creates so much new evil.

To be too smart is one of the most shameful forms of stupidity.

It constantly turns out that the so-called "bad people" gain from a more thorough study of them, and the "good" ones lose from this.

You find lesson in life more often than consolation.

Before condemning, you always need to consider whether you can find an excuse.

In the absence of other means, the character of a person can never be understood more accurately than by the joke at which he is offended.

Train your mind to doubt and your heart to tolerance.

The reason people remember so little about what they read is because they think too little themselves.

Trying to do everything at once is to do nothing.

An act of slavery is not always the act of a slave.

Is what a person can know exactly what he should know?

The equality we demand is just the most tolerable degree of inequality.

Reviewers have the right not only to tell people in the eyes that they are fools, but even to prove it to them.

The most interesting surface on earth for us is the human face.

The most dangerous lies are truths that are slightly perverted.

The healthiest and most beautiful, proportionally built people are those who are not annoyed by anything.

A modest person is more intolerable to me than a braggart. A braggart recognizes his dignity for everyone, an overly modest person, apparently, despises the one in front of whom he is modest.

You won't get better by hiding your flaws; our credibility benefits from the sincerity with which we acknowledge them.

One should strive to see in every thing that which no one else has seen and over which no one has thought.

The word "difficulty" should not exist at all for the creative mind.

With wit, things are the same as with music: the more you listen to it, the more subtle harmonies you want.

Empathy is not an important charity.

Try not to be below your era.

There are untalented dreamers, and then they are really dangerous people.

What actually makes heavenly life so attractive for the poor is the idea of \u200b\u200bthe equality of estates in the next world.

For spiritual sheep in a community, as for worldly ones in a pasture, the main thing is wool.

For many people, writing poetry is a mental growth disease.

A person's mind can be determined by the carefulness with which he considers the future or the outcome of the case.

Teaching reason and being intelligent are completely different things.

A person loves society, be it even the society of a lonely burning candle.

Honest and fraud simply confuse the concepts of "mine" and "yours." One counts the first for the second, and the other - the second for the first.

Self-love has at least the advantage that it has few rivals.

A metaphor is much smarter than its creator, and so many things are.

Some people have the ability to appear stupid before they discover intelligence. This gift is especially common among girls.

The inability to learn in old age is due (and, moreover, undoubtedly) a reluctance to obey.

There is, perhaps, not a single person in the world who, if he had a chance to become a swindler for a thousand thalers, would not prefer to remain an honest person for half this amount.

Do you think that God is a Catholic?

New through old cracks.

New discoveries in philosophy are almost entirely discoveries of new delusions.

It is common knowledge that a quarter of an hour is more than a quarter of an hour.

One of the main benefits of marriage is that you can refer friends to your wife.

Not only did he not believe in ghosts, but he was not even afraid of them.

They felt government pressure as little as air pressure.

The guy who once stole 100,000 thalers can live his life honestly in the future.

Written requests are easier to reject, and written orders are easier to issue than verbal ones.

Such people do not defend Christianity, but defend Christianity.

A popular exposition today is too often called such, thanks to which the masses get the opportunity to talk about something without understanding anything in this matter.

It's incredible how much the rules can be damaged if you put things in too strict order.

The carvings of the saints have done more things in the world than the saints themselves did during their lifetime.

Modesty should be a virtue of those who have no others.

There is a big difference: to keep believing in something and to believe in the same thing again. Continuing to believe that the moon affects plants is foolishness and prejudice, but to believe it again is a sign of philosophical reflection.

In a woman, the location of the sense of honor coincides with the center of gravity of her body, in her it is located somewhat higher, in the chest, near the diaphragm. Therefore, men inflate their breasts when doing "great" deeds and feel sluggish and empty
when doing small things.

One has a wrong spelling, the other has a correct misspelling.

Often times, some people become scientists, just like others become soldiers, just because they are no longer fit for any business.

What? Understand the case you're arguing about? I argue, on the contrary, that for a dispute it is necessary that at least one of the parties does not understand anything about this matter, and in a so-called lively dispute, at the moment of its highest manifestation, both parties should not understand anything in it and not even know, what they're saying.

To see something new, you need to do something new.

This book must first be threshed.

I thank God a thousand times for making me an atheist.

I have always found that the less a scientist can prove his own greatness in works on natural science, the more inclined he is to constantly prove the greatness of God.

Parents who notice that their son wants to become a poet should flog him until he either gives up poetry or becomes a great poet.

Where the boundaries of science used to be, there is now its center.

The greats of this world are often reproached for not doing all the good that they could have done. They may argue, "Think about all the harm we could do."

The fact that many are looking for the truth and do not find it is probably due to the fact that the paths to the truth, like the roads in the Nogai steppe, leading from one place to another, are just as wide and long.

True, we no longer burn witches, but we burn every letter that contains the complete truth.

You shouldn't go to bed before you tell yourself that you've learned something in the day. What I mean by "learned" is the desire to push the boundaries of our scientific and any other useful knowledge.

I know a face of ostentatious attention: this is the deepest degree of absent-mindedness.

Scientists are never proud; on the contrary, only those who, not having the ability to develop science themselves, are engaged in popularizing its dark history, or are eager to tell everything that others have done, become puffed up with pride.

They are wrong too, and some of them are so often that one is almost tempted to think they are insignificant people.

It is very important how something is said; I think that the most ordinary things can be said in such a way that many will think: was it not the devil himself who inspired them to the speaker?

"Good Tone" is an octave lower.

Beautiful birds sing worse than others. The same applies to people. In a pretentious style, don't look for a deep thought.

There were only two people in the world whom he loved dearly: the first was his greatest flatterer, the second was himself.

When a book collides with the head and at the same time a dull empty sound is heard, is the book always to blame?

He constantly made extracts, and everything he read passed from one book to another, bypassing his head.

He wrote eight volumes. It would certainly have been better if he had planted eight trees or had eight children.

Listeners often think of themselves as convinced where they are first spoken.

There is a state ... when the presence and absence of a loved one is equally difficult to bear; in any case, in his presence one does not experience the pleasure that one would expect from suffering from his absence.

The average person always adapts to the prevailing opinion and the prevailing fashion, he considers the current state of things to be the only possible and is passive about everything.

Making smart people believe that you are not who you really are is, in many cases, more difficult than becoming truly who you want to appear.

Finding small flaws has long been the property of minds that have little or no rise above mediocrity. Lofty minds are silent or object to the whole, while great minds create themselves, without condemning anyone.

After the heart, that is, fear, recognized God, the mind began to search for it, just as burghers search for ghosts.

Any non-partisanship is artificial. A person is always partisan and deeply right in this. Non-partisanship itself is partisan.

The audience, when they praise us, is always considered a competent judge. But as soon as she censures us, they are recognized as incapable of talking about works of the mind.

It is an old rule that a person can appear modest when he wants to; but a humble person cannot seem shameless.

The best way to praise the living and the dead is to excuse their weaknesses; but just not to ascribe to them virtues that they did not possess, this spoils everything and even makes the true suspicious.

Do not be too saddened by undeserved censure; but sometimes they praise you for nothing.

A keen mind is a magnifying glass; wit - diminutive."