Cautiousness in judgment is nowadays to be recommended to each and every one: if we gained only one incontestable truth every ten years from each of our philosophical writers the harvest we reaped would be sufficient. ... To grow wiser means to learn to know better and better the faults to which this instrument with which we feel and judge can be subject.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Lichtenberg advises caution in judgment, noting that learning our own faults improves wisdom.
- In plain terms
- Be careful judging others; know your own faults to get wiser.
- What can you take from it?
- Wisdom comes from understanding your own judgment errors.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- How do you catch your own biases?
- Is caution always the best approach to judgment?
Another view
Sometimes decisive judgment is more useful than caution.
More from Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
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