Germany
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
said
Every man has his moral backside which he refrains from showing unless he has to and keeps covered as long as possible with the trousers of decorum.
— B 12
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
German scientist and satirist (1742-1799)
- Fame61.8
- Momentum2.1
- Scientists rank#241
Source-basedStable
- Fame61.8
- Momentum2.1
- Scientists rank#241
- Wikipedia6.6K
Lived 1742–1799, aged 57Germany
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Summary
Updated 2026-06-09
A German physicist who pioneered experimental physics as an academic discipline, then became more famous for what he scribbled in his private notebooks — sharp, strange fragments that influenced everyone from Nietzsche to Wittgenstein.
Biography
About
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg was born on 1 July 1742 and became the first person in Germany to hold a professorship explicitly dedicated to experimental physics. He discovered the branching electrical discharge patterns now called Lichtenberg figures. But his real legacy came from notebooks he called Sudelbücher — "waste books" — journals of aphorisms, observations, and satirical jabs that he never intended to publish. They appeared only after his death on 24 February 1799, and turned out to contain some of the sharpest prose in German letters: a physicist's mind turned loose on human absurdity…
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Sourced, dated quotes from Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
said
There are two ways of extending life: firstly by moving the two points "born" and "died" farther away from one another...
— B 22
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
said
I have written a good number of drafts and small reflections. They are not waiting for the last touch but for the sunlight to wake them up.
— B 29
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
said
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.
— A 10
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
said
Food probably has a very great influence on the condition of men. Wine exercises a more visible influence, food does it more slowly but perhaps just as surely.
— A 14
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Fame
Stable61.8
Composite of search demand, mentions, audience & graph footprint.
Score components
Momentum2.1
Historical23.8
Source confidence60.0
Completeness70.0
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