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
If another Messiah was born he could hardly do so much good as the printing-press.
Some men come by the name of genius in the same way as an insect comes by the name of centipede - not because it has a hundred feet, but because most people can't count above fourteen
With most people disbelief in a thing is founded on a blind belief in some other thing.
The proof that man is the noblest of all creatures is that no other creature has ever denied it.
Before we blame we should first see whether we cannot excuse.
It thunders, howls, roars, hisses, whistles, blusters, hums, growls, rumbles, squeaks, groans, sings, crackles, cracks, rattles, flickers, clicks, snarls, tumbles, whimpers, whines, rustles, murmurs, crashes, clucks, to gurgle, tinkles, blows, snores, claps, to lisp, to cough, it boils, to scream, to weep, to sob, to croak, to stutter, to lisp, to coo, to breathe, to clash, to bleat, to neigh, to grumble, to scrape, to bubble. These words, and others like them, which express sounds are more than mere symbols: they are a kind of hieroglyphics for the ear.
Love is blind, but marriage restores its sight.
To do just the opposite is also a form of imitation.
It is strange that only extraordinary men make the discoveries, which later appear so easy and simple.
Doubt must be no more than vigilance, otherwise it can become dangerous.
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.
Even truth needs to be clad in new garments if it is to appeal to a new age.
The most dangerous untruths are truths slightly distorted.
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.