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Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
(1 Jul 1742 - 24 Feb 1799)
German physicist and writer most widely known for his satire and aphorisms, but as a scientist, Lichtenberg did research in a wide variety of fields, including geophysics, volcanology, meteorology, chemistry, astronomy, mathematics, but especially physics. He discovered the basic physical process later used in xerographic copiers.
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Georg Christoph Lichtenberg Quotes on Belief (4 quotes)
>> Click for 73 Science Quotes by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
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>> Click for 73 Science Quotes by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
>> Click for Georg Christoph Lichtenberg Quotes on | Discovery | Genius | Man | Nature | Science | Theory | Thinking | Truth | World |
If we make a couple of discoveries here and there we need not believe things will go like this for ever. An acrobat can leap higher than a farm-hand, and one acrobat higher than another, yet the height no man can overleap is still very low. Just as we hit water when we dig in the earth, so we discover the incomprehensible sooner or later.
— Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Aphorisms, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (1990), 92.
Our world will yet grow so subtle that it will be as ludicrous to believe in a god as it is today to believe in ghosts.
— Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Aphorism 57 in Notebook D (1773-1775), as translated by R.J. Hollingdale in Aphorisms (1990). Reprinted as The Waste Books (2000), 52.
To see every day how people get the name “genius” just as the wood-lice in the
cellar the name “millipede”—not because they have that many feet, but because most people don't want to count to 14—this has had the result that I don't believe anyone any more without checking.
— Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Lichtenberg: Aphorisms & Letters (1969), 48, translated by Franz H. Mautner and Henry Hatfield.
We have to believe that everything has a cause, as the spider spins its web in order to catch flies. But it does this before it knows there are such things as flies.
— Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Aphorisms, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (1990), 112.
See also:
- 1 Jul - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Lichtenberg's birth.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
