14 Georg Christoph Lichtenberg Quotes on Psychology

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg quotes on psychology

2. One might call habit a moral friction: something that prevents the mind from gliding over things but connects it with them and makes it hard for it to free itself from them.

11. He was then in his fifty-fourth year, when even in the case of poets reason and passion begin to discuss a peace treaty and usually conclude it not very long afterwards.

65. Just as the performance of the vilest and most wicked deeds requires spirit and talent, so even the greatest demand a certain insensitivity which under other circumstances we would call stupidity.

71. Affectation is a very good word when someone does not wish to confess to what he would none the less like to believe of himself.

82. He who is enamored of himself will at least have the advantage of being inconvenienced by few rivals.

89. Delight at having understood a very abstract and obscure system leads most people to believe in the truth of what it demonstrates.

95. Nothing makes one old so quickly as the ever-present thought that one is growing older.

97. The sure conviction that we could if we wanted to is the reason so many good minds are idle.

102. He who says he hates every kind of flattery, and says it in earnest, certainly does not yet know every kind of flattery.

108. First we have to believe, and then we believe.

     Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

122. Concerning the body, there are at least as many, if not more, imaginary sick as really sick people. Concerning the mind, there are as many, if not more, imaginary sane people as really sane ones.

124. Even the gentlest, most modest and best of girls are always better, gentler and more modest if their mirrors have told them they are looking more beautiful than ever.

139. Not only did he not believe in ghosts, he wasn't even afraid of them.

156. There are people that can believe everything they want. These are happy creatures.