The Greeks possessed a knowledge of human nature we seem…

The Greeks possessed a knowledge of human nature we seem hardly able to attain to without passing through the strengthening hibernation of a new barbarism.

Sourced, Aphorisms (1765-1799)

F 44

Other Georg Christoph Lichtenberg Quotes

To receive applause for works which do not demand all our powers hinders our advance towards a perfecting of our spirit. It usually means that thereafter we stand still. - View Quote Details on To receive applause for works which do not demand all…
There are people who possess not so much genius as a certain talent for perceiving the desires of the century, or even of the decade, before it has done so itself. - View Quote Details on There are people who possess not so much genius as…
A great speech is easy to learn by heart and a great poem even easier. How hard it would be to memorize as many words linked together senselessly, or a speech in a foreign tongue! Sense and understanding thus come to the aid of memory. Sense is order and order is in the last resort conformity with our nature. When we speak rationally we are only speaking in accordance with the nature of our being. That is why we devise genera and species in the case of plants and animals. The hypotheses we make belong here too: we are obliged to have them because otherwise we would unable to retain things… The question is, however, whether everything is legible to us. Certainly experiment and reflection enable us to introduce a significance into what is not legible, either to us or at all: thus we see faces or landscapes in the sand, though they are certainly not there. The introducion of symmetries belongs here too, silhouettes in inkblots, etc. Likewise the gradation we establish in the order of creatures: all this is not in the things but in us. In general we cannot remember too often that when we observe nature, and especially the ordering of nature, it is always ourselves alone we are observing. - View Quote Details on A great speech is easy to learn by heart and…
Popularizing should always be done in such a manner that one would elevate people by it. If one stoops down, one should always take care of elevating even those people to whom one descends. - View Quote Details on Popularizing should always be done in such a manner that…
My head lies at least a foot closer to my heart than is the case with other men: that is why I am so reasonable. - View Quote Details on My head lies at least a foot closer to my…
I am convinced we do not only love ourselves in others but hate ourselves in others too. - View Quote Details on I am convinced we do not only love ourselves in…
If we make a couple of discoveries here and there we need not believe things will go on like this for ever…. Just as we hit water when we dig in the earth, so we discover the incomprehensible sooner or later. - View Quote Details on If we make a couple of discoveries here and there…
If it is permissible to write plays that are not intended to be seen, I should like to see who can prevent me from writing a book no one can read. - View Quote Details on If it is permissible to write plays that are not…
I believe that man is in the last resort so free a being that his right to be what he believes himself to be cannot be contested. - View Quote Details on I believe that man is in the last resort so…
Astronomy is perhaps the science whose discoveries owe least to chance, in which human understanding appears in its whole magnitude, and through which man can best learn how small he is. - View Quote Details on Astronomy is perhaps the science whose discoveries owe least to…