Georg C. Lichtenberg Quotes

The defects of great men are the consolation of the dunces.

Little minds are interested in the extraordinary; great minds in the commonplace.

Cynicism is what passes for insight among the mediocre [journalists]

Great minds are always feared by lesser minds.

The highest point to which a weak but experienced mind can rise is detecting the weakness of better men.

It is not possible for minds degraded by a host of trivial concerns to ever rise to anything great.

We know you have a great mind and all, Mother, but you don’t have much sense.

There is no place for little minds in a great work

He was marked out by his relentless ability to find fault with others' mediocrity - suggesting that a certain type of intelligence may be at heart nothing more or less than a superior capacity for dissatisfaction.

He that can carp in the most eloquent or acute manner at the weakness of the human mind is held by his fellows as almost divine.

Think you are weak, think you lack what it takes, think you will lose, think you are second class - think this way and you are doomed to mediocrity.

Wisdom - meaning judgment acting on experience, common sense, available knowledge, and a decent appreciation of probability.

Stop talking about the way things are, unless you like them.

Great innovators and original thinkers and artists attract the wrath of mediocrities as lightning rods draw the flashes.

We must remember that everything is ordinary and extraordinary. It is our minds that either open or close.

Some people think they have discernment when actually they are just suspicious. Suspicion comes out of the unrenewed mind; discernment comes out of the renewed spirit.

A great chessplayer is not a great man, for he leaves the world as he found it.

Experience teaches us not to assume that the obvious is clearly understood

I am all in favor of the skeptical mind. Do not believe anything unless you have experienced it. Do not believe anything - go on questioning, however long it takes.

Genius has no youth, but starts with the ripeness of age and old experience.

He who comes up to his own idea of greatness must always have had a very low standard of it in his mind.

Quotation confesses inferiority.

Having an open mind does not necessarily lead to perfection. It is your ability to observe, analyze, discern, and understand the true essence that basic principles contain that point the way to perfection.

Only mediocrity escapes criticism.

Pathetic attitudes are not in keeping with greatness.