Someone was asked to give a definition of God: God, he said, is a sphere whose centre is everywhere and whose surface is nowhere.

Whisper, immortal muse, of the insanity of the great.

If this is philosophy it is at any rate a philosophy that is not in its right mind.

When he philosophises he usually throws a pleasant moonlight over the objects of his philosophising which is pleasing as a whole but fails to display clearly one single object.

Has the soul not got itself into a strange situation when it reads an investigation of itself – that is to say, seeks in books for what it itself might be? It is something similar to a dog that has had a bone tied to its tail – said Lion, with truth, but somewhat ignobly.

I am afraid that the excessively careful education we provide is cultivating dwarf fruit.

The French Revolution: experimental politics.

First we have to believe, and then we believe.

Is the situation so uncommon, then, in which philosophy forbids one to philosophise?

They feel the pressure of government as little as they do the pressure of the air.

Since a man can go mad I do not see why a universal system cannot do so too …

God himself sees in things only himself.

Much has been written about the first human beings: someone ought to have a go at writing about the two last.

A parable: he always wears spurs but never rides.

Let us let the grass grow over it.

We have no words for speaking of wisdom to the stupid. He who understands the wise is wise already.

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

God created man in his own image, says the Bible; the philosophers do the exact opposite, they create God in theirs.

from Lichtenberg's Waste Books