Georg C. Lichtenberg

One might call habit a moral friction: something that prevents the mind from gliding over things but connects it with them and makes it hard for it to free itself from them. ↗

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

#connects #free #friction #gliding #habit

That man is the noblest creature may also be inferred from the fact that no other creature has yet contested this claim. ↗

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

#claim #contested #creature #fact #inferred

The American who first discovered Columbus made a bad discovery. ↗

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

#bad #columbus #discovered #discovery #first

The fly that doesn't want to be swatted is most secure when it lights on the fly-swatter. ↗

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

#lights #most #secure #want

The human tendency to regard little things as important has produced very many great things. ↗

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

#great things #human #important #little #little things

The most perfect ape cannot draw an ape; only man can do that; but, likewise, only man regards the ability to do this as a sign of superiority. ↗

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

#ape #cannot #draw #likewise #man

The noble simplicity in the works of nature only too often originates in the noble shortsightedness of him who observes it. ↗

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

#nature #noble #observes #often #only

The sure conviction that we could if we wanted to is the reason so many good minds are idle. ↗

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

#could #good #idle #many #minds

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. ↗

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

#century #certain #decade #desires #done

There exists a species of transcendental ventriloquism by means of which men can be made to believe that something said on earth comes from Heaven. ↗

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

#comes #earth #exists #heaven #made