Georg Christoph Lichtenberg Quotes on Humanity
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It is we who are the measure of what is strange and miraculous: if we sought a universal measure the strange and miraculous would not occur and all things would be equal.
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We can see nothing whatever of the soul unless it is visible in the expression of the countenance; one might call the faces at a large assembly of people a history of the human soul written in a kind of Chinese ideograms.
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That man is the noblest creature may also be inferred from the fact that no other creature has yet contested this claim.
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Sickness is mankind's greatest defect.
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To err is human also in so far as animals seldom or never err, or at least only the cleverest of them do so.
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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.
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Man is a masterpiece of creation if for no other reason than that, all the weight of evidence for determinism notwithstanding, he believes he has free will.
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Man is to be found in reason, God in the passions.
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We live in a world in which one fool makes many fools but one wise man only a few wise men.
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Book review: G. C. Lichtenberg: a 'spy on humanity'