Georg Christoph Lichtenberg - Book Quotes

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A book is a mirror: if an ape looks into it an apostle is hardly likely to look out. We have no words for speaking of wisdom to the stupid. He who understands the wise is wise already.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
If it is permissible to write plays that are not intended to be seen, I should like to see who can prevent me from writing a book no one can read.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Do we write books so that they shall merely be read? Don't we also write them for employment in the household? For one that is read from start to finish, thousands are leafed through, other thousands lie motionless, others are jammed against mouseholes, thrown at rats, others are stood on, sat on, drummed on, have gingerbread baked on them or are used to light pipes.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
A book which, above all others in the world, should be forbidden, is a catalogue of forbidden books.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Nowadays we already have books about books and descriptions of descriptions.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
When a book and a head collide and a hollow sound is heard, must it always have come from the book?

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
There are people who believe everything is sane and sensible that is done with a solemn face. … It is no great art to say something briefly when, like Tacitus, one has something to say; when one has nothing to say, however, and none the less writes a whole book and makes truth … into a liar — that I call an achievement.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
As I take up my pen I feel myself so full, so equal to my subject, and see my book so clearly before me in embryo, I would almost like to try to say it all in a single word.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
There can hardly be a stranger commodity in the world than books. Printed by people who don't understand them; sold by people who don't understand them; bound, criticized and read by people who don't understand them; and now even written by people who don't understand them.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
A writer who wishes to be read by posterity must not be averse to putting hints which might give rise to whole books, or ideas for learned discussions, in some corner of a chapter so that one should think he can afford to throw them away by the thousand.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg