Belief in a God is instinct; it is as natural to man as walking on two legs.

— Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799), Physiker und Schriftsteller

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) war ein deutscher Physiker, Astronom und Schriftsteller der Aufklärung, der als Professor für Experimentalphysik in Göttingen wirkte. Er gilt als Begründer des deutschsprachigen Aphorismus und wurde insbesondere durch seine in den „Sudelbüchern“ festgehaltenen scharfgeistigen Beobachtungen sowie seine Kritik an Aberglauben und religiösem Dogmatismus bekannt. Für Bibelleser regt sein methodischer Skeptizismus dazu an, überlieferte Denkmuster kritisch zu hinterfragen und den eigenen Glauben frei von Dogmatismus und blinder Gelehrsamkeit zu prüfen.

All quotes by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (29)

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I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it but because, by it, I see everything else.
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Do you see the moon standing there? It's only half visible, and yet it's round and lovely! So it is with many things that we lightly laugh about, because our eyes cannot see them.
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The grip of our faith by which we hold on to the Lord may loosen. But the One in whom we believe holds us with his grip.
Helmut Thielicke

A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.
C.S. Lewis

Now that I am a Christian I do not have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable: but when I was an atheist I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable.
C.S. Lewis

Faith comes and goes. It rises and falls like the tides of an invisible ocean. If it is presumptuous to think that faith will stay with you forever, it is just as presumptuous to think that unbelief will.
Flannery O'Connor

Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.
William Shakespeare

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