The intercourse with reasonable people is advisable to everybody because,…

The intercourse with reasonable people is advisable to everybody because, in this way, a blockhead can become wise by imitation, for the greatest blockheads can imitate, even apes and elephants can do it.

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Other Georg Christoph Lichtenberg Quotes

What makes our poetry so contemptible nowadays is its paucity of ideas. If you want to be read, invent. Who the Devil wouldn’t like to read something new? - View Quote Details on What makes our poetry so contemptible nowadays is its paucity…
Some people read because they are too lazy to think. - View Quote Details on Some people read because they are too lazy to think.
One cannot demand of a scholar that he show himself a scholar everywhere in society, but the whole tenor of his behavior must none the less betray the thinker, he must always be instructive, his way of judging a thing must even in the smallest matters be such that people can see what it will amount to when, quietly and self-collected, he puts this power to scholarly use. - View Quote Details on One cannot demand of a scholar that he show himself…
There are very many people who read simply to prevent themselves from thinking. - View Quote Details on There are very many people who read simply to prevent…
Do we write books so that they shall merely be read? Don’t we also write them for employment in the household? For one that is read from start to finish, thousands are leafed through, other thousands lie motionless, others are jammed against mouseholes, thrown at rats, others are stood on, sat on, drummed on, have gingerbread baked on them or are used to light pipes. - View Quote Details on Do we write books so that they shall merely be…
There can hardly be stranger wares in the world than books: printed by people who do not understand them; sold by people who do not understand them; bound, reviewed and read by people who do not understand them; and now even written by people who do not understand them. - View Quote Details on There can hardly be stranger wares in the world than…
If it were true what in the end would be gained? Nothing but another truth. Is this such a mighty advantage? We have enough old truths still to digest, and even these we would be quite unable to endure if we did not sometimes flavor them with lies. - View Quote Details on If it were true what in the end would be…
Brief biography at Kirjasto (Pegasos) - View Quote Details on Brief biography at Kirjasto (Pegasos)
There are people who believe everything is sane and sensible that is done with a solemn face…. It is no great art to say something briefly when, like Tacitus, one has something to say; when one has nothing to say, however, and none the less writes a whole book and makes truth… into a liar — that I call an achievement. - View Quote Details on There are people who believe everything is sane and sensible…
If countries were named after the words you first hear when you go there, England would have to be called Damn It. - View Quote Details on If countries were named after the words you first hear…