Quote #107

So-called professional mathematicians have, in their reliance on the relative incapacity of the rest of mankind, acquired for themselves a reputation for profundity very similar to the reputation for sanctity possessed by theologians.

More from Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

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  2. First we have to believe, and then we believe.
  3. It is in the gift for employing all the vicissitudes of life to one's own advantage and to that of one's craft that a large part of genius …
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  5. If all else fails, the character of a man can be recognized by nothing so surely as by a jest which he takes badly.
  6. There is no greater impediment to progress in the sciences than the desire to see it take place too quickly.
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