Georg C. Lichtenberg
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenbergwas a German scientist, satirist, and Anglophile. As a scientist, he was the first to hold a professorship explicitly dedicated to experimental physics in Germany. Today, he is remembered for his posthumously published notebooks, which he himself called Sudelbücher, a description modelled on the English bookkeeping term "scrapbooks", and for his discovery of the strange tree-like electrical discharge patterns now called Lichtenberg figures...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth1 July 1742
CountryGermany
Before we blame we should first see whether we cannot excuse.
Once we know our weaknesses they cease to do us any harm.
A book is a mirror: if an ape looks into it an apostle is hardly likely to look out.
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.
Even truth needs to be clad in new garments if it is to appeal to a new age.
Doubt must be no more than vigilance, otherwise it can become dangerous.
It is strange that only extraordinary men make the discoveries, which later appear so easy and simple.
Just as we outgrow a pair of trousers, we outgrow acquaintances, libraries, principles, etc., at times before they're worn out and times - and this is the worst of all - before we have new ones.
The sure conviction that we could if we wanted to is the reason so many good minds are idle.
If all mankind were suddenly to practice honesty, many thousands of people would be sure to starve
The proof that man is the noblest of all creatures is that no other creature has ever denied it.
We say that someone occupies an official position, whereas it is the official position that occupies him.
Those who never have time do least
The great trick of regarding small departures from the truth as the truth itself - on which is founded the entire integral calculus - is also the basis of our witty speculations, where the whole thing would often collapse if we considered the departures with philosophical rigour.