Georg C. Lichtenberg Quotes About Science

Quotes about: Science

• The great rule: If the little bit you have is nothing special in itself, at least find a way of saying it that is a little bit special.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Science, Special, Littles

  "Aphorisms". Book by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Notebook E 55, 1799.

• The natural scientists of the previous age knew less than we do and believed they were very close to the goal: we have taken very great steps in its direction and now discover we are still very far away from it. With the most rational philosophers an increase in their knowledge is always attended by an increased conviction of their ignorance.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Taken, Ignorance, Science

• Imagine the world so greatly magnified that particles of light look like twenty-four-pound cannon balls.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Science, Light, Twenties

• The construction of the universe is certainly very much easier to explain than is that of the plant.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Science, Construction, Plant

• They do not think, therefore they are not.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Science, Thinking

• 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 C. Lichtenberg

  Believe, Science, Order

• How might letters be most efficiently copied so that the blind might read them with their fingers?

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Science, Letters, Might

• One has to do something new in order to see something new.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Science, Order, Something New

  "Aphorisms". Book by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Notebook J 1770, 1799.

• It is astonishing how much the word infinitely is misused: everything is infinitely more beautiful, infinitely better, etc. The concept must have something pleasing about it, or its misuse could not have become so general.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Beautiful, Science, Etc

• Non cogitant, ergo non sunt.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Science

• A good method of discovery is to imagine certain members of a system removed and then see how what is left would behave: for example, where would we be if iron were absent from the world: this is an old example.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Science, Discovery, Iron

• Above all things expand the frontiers of science: without this the rest counts for nothing.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Science, Accounts, All Things

• There is no greater impediment to progress in the sciences than the desire to see it take place too quickly.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Science, Progress, Desire

  "Aphorisms". Book by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Notebook K 72, 1799.

• What we have to discover for ourselves leaves behind in our mind a pathway that can be used on another occasion.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Science, Discovery, Mind

• Do not say hypothesis, and even less theory: say way of thinking.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Science, Thinking, Way

• We often have need of a profound philosophy to restore to our feelings their original state of innocence, to find our way out of the rubble of things alien to us, to begin to feel for ourselves and to speak ourselves, and I might almost say to exist ourselves.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Philosophy, Science, Profound

  "Aphorisms". Book by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Notebook B 49, 1799.

• The most heated defenders of a science, who cannot endure the slightest sneer at it, are commonly those who have not made very much progress in it and are secretly aware of this defect.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Science, Secret, Progress

  "Aphorisms". Book by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Notebook F 8, 1799.

• The more experiences and experiments accumulate in the exploration of nature, the more precarious the theories become. But it is not always good to discard them immediately on this account. For every hypothesis which once was sound was useful for thinking of previous phenomena in the proper interrelations and for keeping them in context. We ought to set down contradictory experiences separately, until enough have accumulated to make building a new structure worthwhile.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Nature, Science, Thinking

• 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 C. Lichtenberg

  Truth, Believe, Science

• He marvelled at the fact that the cats had two holes cut in their fur at precisely the spot where their eyes were.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Cat, Eye, Cutting

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