Georg Christoph Lichtenberg - Truth Quotes

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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.

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
It is almost impossible to bear the torch of truth through a crowd without singeing somebody's beard.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Even truth needs to be clad in new garments if it is to appeal to a new age.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
The most dangerous untruths are truths moderately distorted.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
If it were true what in the end would be gained? Nothing but another truth. Is this such a mighty advantage? We have enough old truths still to digest, and even these we would be quite unable to endure if we did not sometimes flavor them with lies.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
It is said that truth comes from the mouths of fools and children: I wish every good mind which feels an inclination for satire would reflect that the finest satirist always has something of both in him.

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
One can live in this world on soothsaying but not on truth saying.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg