Иоганн Вольфганг фон Гёте
Maxims and Reflections
LIFE AND CHARACTER
I
1
There is nothing worth thinking but it has been thought before; we must only try to think it again.
2
How can a man come to know himself? Never by thinking, but by doing. Try to do your duty, and you will know at once what you are worth.
3
But what is your duty? The claims of the day.
4
The world of reason is to be regarded as a great and immortal being, who ceaselessly works out what is necessary, and so makes himself lord also over what is accidental.
5
The longer I live, the more it grieves me to see man, who occupies his supreme place for the very purpose of imposing his will upon nature, and freeing himself and his from an outrageous necessity, – to see him taken up with some false notion, and doing just the opposite of what he wants to do; and then, because the whole bent of his mind is spoilt, bungling miserably over everything.
6
Be genuine and strenuous; earn for yourself, and look for, grace from those in high places; from the powerful, favour; from the active and the good, advancement; from the many, affection; from the individual, love.
7
Tell me with whom you associate, and I will tell you who you are. If I know what your business is, I know what can be made of you.
8
Every man must think after his own fashion; for on his own path he finds a truth, or a kind of truth, which helps him through life. But he must not give himself the rein; he must control himself; mere naked instinct does not become him.
9
Unqualified activity, of whatever kind, leads at last to bankruptcy.
10
In the works of mankind, as in those of nature, it is really the motive which is chiefly worth attention.
11
Men get out of countenance with themselves and others because they treat the means as the end, and so, from sheer doing, do nothing, or, perhaps, just what they would have avoided.
12
Our plans and designs should be so perfect in truth and beauty, that in touching them the world could only mar. We should thus have the advantage of setting right what is wrong, and restoring what is destroyed.
13
It is a very hard and troublesome thing to dispose of whole, half-, and quarter-mistakes; to sift them and assign the portion of truth to its proper place.
14
It is not always needful for truth to take a definite shape; it is enough if it hovers about us like a spirit and produces harmony; if it is wafted through the air like the sound of a bell, grave and kindly.
15
General ideas and great conceit are always in a fair way to bring about terrible misfortune.
16
You cannot play the flute by blowing alone: you must use your fingers.
17
In Botany there is a species of plants called Incompletæ; and just in the same way it can be said that there are men who are incomplete and imperfect. They are those whose desires and struggles are out of proportion to their actions and achievements.
18
The most insignificant man can be complete if he works within the limits of his capacities, innate or acquired; but even fine talents can be obscured, neutralised, and destroyed by lack of this indispensable requirement of symmetry. This is a mischief which will often occur in modern times; for who will be able to come up to the claims of an age so full and intense as this, and one too that moves so rapidly?
19
It is only men of practical ability, knowing their powers and using them with moderation and prudence, who will be successful in worldly affairs.
20
It is a great error to take oneself for more than one is, or for less than one is worth.
21
From time to time I meet with a youth in whom I can wish for no alteration or improvement, only I am sorry to see how often his nature makes him quite ready to swim with the stream of the time; and it is on this that I would always insist, that man in his fragile boat has the rudder placed in his hand, just that he may not be at the mercy of the waves, but follow the direction of his own insight.
22
But how is a young man to come of himself to see blame in things which every one is busy with, which every one approves and promotes? Why should he not follow his natural bent and go in the same direction as they?
23
I must hold it for the greatest calamity of our time, which lets nothing come to maturity, that one moment is consumed by the next, and the day spent in the day; so that a man is always living from hand to mouth, without having anything to show for it. Have we not already newspapers for every hour of the day! A good head could assuredly intercalate one or other of them. They publish abroad everything that every one does, or is busy with or meditating; nay, his very designs are thereby dragged into publicity. No one can rejoice or be sorry, but as a pastime for others; and so it goes on from house to house, from city to city, from kingdom to kingdom, and at last from one hemisphere to the other, – all in post haste.
24
As little as you can stifle a steam-engine, so little can you do this in the moral sphere either. The activity of commerce, the rush and rustle of paper-money, the swelling-up of debts to pay debts – all these are the monstrous elements to which in these days a young man is exposed. Well is it for him if he is gifted by nature with a sober, quiet temperament; neither to make claims on the world out of all proportion to his position, nor yet let the world determine it.
25
But on all sides he is threatened by the spirit of the day, and nothing is more needful than to make him see early enough the direction in which his will has to steer.
26
The significance of the most harmless words and actions grows with the years, and if I see any one about me for any length of time, I always try to show him the difference there is between sincerity, confidence, and indiscretion; nay, that in truth there is no difference at all, but a gentle transition from what is most innocent to what is most hurtful; a transition which must be perceived or rather felt.
27
Herein we must exercise our tact; otherwise in the very way in which we have won the favour of mankind, we run the risk of trifling it away again unawares. This is a lesson which a man learns quite well for himself in the course of life, but only after having paid a dear price for it; nor can he, unhappily, spare his posterity a like expenditure.
28
Love of truth shows itself in this, that a man knows how to find and value the good in everything.
29
Character calls forth character.
30
If I am to listen to another man's opinion, it must be expressed positively. Of things problematical I have enough in myself.
31
Superstition is a part of the very being of humanity; and when we fancy that we are banishing it altogether, it takes refuge in the strangest nooks and corners, and then suddenly comes forth again, as soon as it believes itself at all safe.
32
I keep silence about many things, for I do not want to put people out of countenance; and I am well content if they are pleased with things that annoy me.
33
Everything that frees our spirit without giving us control of ourselves is ruinous.
34
A man is really alive only when he delights in the good-will of others.
35
Piety is not an end, but a means: a means of attaining the highest culture by the purest tranquillity of soul.
36
Hence it may be observed that those who set up piety as an end and object are mostly hypocrites.
37
When a man is old he must do more than when he was young.
38
To fulfil a duty is still always to feel it as a debt, for it is never quite satisfying to oneself.
39
Defects are perceived only by one who has no love; therefore, to see them, a man must become uncharitable, but not more so than is necessary for the purpose.
40
The greatest piece of good fortune is that which corrects our deficiencies and redeems our mistakes.
41
Reading ought to mean understanding; writing ought to mean knowing something; believing ought to mean comprehending; when you desire a thing, you will have to take it; when you demand it, you will not get it; and when you are experienced, you ought to be useful to others.
42
The stream is friendly to the miller whom it serves; it likes to pour over the mill wheels; what is the good of it stealing through the valley in apathy?
43
Whoso is content with pure experience and acts upon it has enough of truth. The growing child is wise in this sense.
44
Theory is in itself of no use, except in so far as it makes us believe in the connection of phenomena.
45
When a man asks too much and delights in complication, he is exposed to perplexity.
46
Thinking by means of analogies is not to be condemned. Analogy has this advantage, that it comes to no conclusion, and does not, in truth, aim at finality at all. Induction, on the contrary, is fatal, for it sets up an object and keeps it in view, and, working on towards it, drags false and true with it in its train.
47
The absent works upon us by tradition. The usual form of it may be called historical; a higher form, akin to the imaginative faculty, is the mythical. If some third form of it is to be sought behind this last, and it has any meaning, it is transformed into the mystical. It also easily becomes sentimental, so that we appropriate to our use only what suits us.
48
In contemplation as in action, we must distinguish between what may be attained and what is unattainable. Without this, little can be achieved, either in life or in knowledge.
49
'Le sense commun est le génie de l'humanité.'
Common-sense, which is here put forward as the genius of humanity, must be examined first of all in the way it shows itself. If we inquire the purpose to which humanity puts it, we find as follows: Humanity is conditioned by needs. If they are not satisfied, men become impatient; and if they are, it seems not to affect them. The normal man moves between these two states, and he applies his understanding – his so-called common-sense – to the satisfaction of his needs. When his needs are satisfied, his task is to fill up the waste spaces of indifference. Here, too, he is successful, if his needs are confined to what is nearest and most necessary. But if they rise and pass beyond the sphere of ordinary wants, common-sense is no longer sufficient; it is a genius no more, and humanity enters on the region of error.
50
There is no piece of foolishness but it can be corrected by intelligence or accident; no piece of wisdom but it can miscarry by lack of intelligence or by accident.
51
Every great idea is a tyrant when it first appears; hence the advantages which it produces change all too quickly into disadvantages. It is possible, then, to defend and praise any institution that exists, if its beginnings are brought to remembrance, and it is shown that everything which was true of it at the beginning is true of it still.
52
Lessing, who chafed under the sense of various limitations, makes one of his characters say: No one must do anything. A clever pious man said: If a man wills something, he must do it. A third, who was, it is true, an educated man, added: Will follows upon insight. The whole circle of knowledge, will, and necessity was thus believed to have been completed. But, as a rule, a man's knowledge, of whatever kind it may be, determines what he shall do and what he shall leave undone, and so it is that there is no more terrible sight than ignorance in action.
53
There are two powers that make for peace: what is right, and what is fitting.
54
Justice insists on obligation, law on decorum. Justice weighs and decides, law superintends and orders. Justice refers to the individual, law to society.
55
The history of knowledge is a great fugue in which the voices of the nations one after the other emerge.
II
56
If a man is to achieve all that is asked of him, he must take himself for more than he is, and as long as he does not carry it to an absurd length, we willingly put up with it.
57
Work makes companionship.
58
People whip curds to see if they cannot make cream of them.
59
It is much easier to put yourself in the position of a mind taken up with the most absolute error, than of one which mirrors to itself half-truths.
60
Wisdom lies only in truth.
61
When I err, every one can see it; but not when I lie.
62
Is not the world full enough of riddles already, without our making riddles too out of the simplest phenomena?
63
'The finest hair throws a shadow.' Erasmus.
64
What I have tried to do in my life through false tendencies, I have at last learned to understand.
65
Generosity wins favour for every one, especially when it is accompanied by modesty.
66
Before the storm breaks, the dust rises violently for the last time – the dust that is soon to be laid forever.
67
Men do not come to know one another easily, even with the best will and the best purpose. And then ill-will comes in and distorts everything.
68
We should know one another better if one man were not so anxious to put himself on an equality with another.
69
Eminent men are therefore in a worse plight than others; for, as we cannot compare ourselves with them, we are on the watch for them.
70
In the world the point is, not to know men, but at any given moment to be cleverer than the man who stands before you. You can prove this at every fair and from every charlatan.
71
Not everywhere where there is water, are there frogs; but where you have frogs, there you will find water.
72
Error is quite right as long as we are young, but we must not carry it on with us into our old age.
Whims and eccentricities that grow stale are all useless, rank nonsense.
a73
In the formation of species Nature gets, as it were, into a cul-de-sac; she cannot make her way through, and is disinclined to turn back. Hence the stubbornness of national character.
74
Every one has something in his nature which, if he were to express it openly, would of necessity give offence.
75
If a man thinks about his physical or moral condition, he generally finds that he is ill.
76
Nature asks that a man should sometimes be stupefied without going to sleep; hence the pleasure in the smoking of tobacco, the drinking of brandy, the use of opiates.
77
The man who is up and doing should see to it that what he does is right. Whether or not right is done, is a matter which should not trouble him.
78
Many a man knocks about on the wall with his hammer, and believes that he hits the right nail on the head every time.
79
Painting and tattooing of the body is a return to animalism.
80
History-writing is a way of getting rid of the past.
81
What a man does not understand, he does not possess.
82
Not every one who has a pregnant thought delivered to him becomes productive; it probably makes him think of something with which he is quite familiar.
83
Favour, as a symbol of sovereignty, is exercised by weak men.
84
Every man has enough power left to carry out that of which he is convinced.
85
Memory may vanish so long as at the moment judgment does not fail you.
86
No nation gains the power of judgment except it can pass judgment on itself. But to attain this great privilege takes a very long time.
87
Instead of contradicting my words people ought to act in my spirit.
88
Those who oppose intellectual truths do but stir up the fire, and the cinders fly about and burn what they had else not touched.
89
Man would not be the finest creature in the world if he were not too fine for it.
90
What a long time people were vainly disputing about the Antipodes!
91
Certain minds must be allowed their peculiarities.
92
Snow is false purity.
93
Whoso shrinks from ideas ends by having nothing but sensations.
94
Those from whom we are always learning are rightly called our masters; but not every one who teaches us deserves this title.
95
It is with you as with the sea: the most varied names are given to what is in the end only salt water.
96
It is said that vain self-praise stinks in the nostrils. That may be so; but for the kind of smell which comes from unjust blame by others the public has no nose at all.
97
There are problematical natures which are equal to no position in which they find themselves, and which no position satisfies. This it is that causes that hideous conflict which wastes life and deprives it of all pleasure.
98
If we do any real good, it is mostly clam, vi, et precario.
99
Dirt glitters as long as the sun shines.
100
It is difficult to be just to the passing moment. We are bored by it if it is neither good nor bad; but the good moment lays a task upon us, and the bad moment a burden.
101
He is the happiest man who can set the end of his life in connection with the beginning.
102
So obstinately contradictory is man that you cannot compel him to his advantage, yet he yields before everything that forces him to his hurt.
103
Forethought is simple, afterthought manifold.
104
A state of things in which every day brings some new trouble is not the right one.
105
When people suffer by failing to look before them, nothing is commoner than trying to look out for some possible remedy.
106
The Hindoos of the Desert make a solemn vow to eat no fish.
107
To venture an opinion is like moving a piece at chess: it may be taken, but it forms the beginning of a game that is won.
108
It is as certain as it is strange that truth and error come from one and the same source. Thus it is that we are often not at liberty to do violence to error, because at the same time we do violence to truth.
109
Truth belongs to the man, error to his age. This is why it has been said that, while the misfortune of the age caused his error, the force of his soul made him emerge from the error with glory.
110
Every one has his peculiarities and cannot get rid of them; and yet many a one is destroyed by his peculiarities, and those too of the most innocent kind.
111
If a man does think too much of himself, he is more than he believes himself to be.
112
In art and knowledge, as also in deed and action, everything depends on a pure apprehension of the object and a treatment of it according to its nature.
113
When intelligent and sensible people despise knowledge in their old age, it is only because they have asked too much of it and of themselves.
114
I pity those who make much ado about the transitory nature of all things and are lost in the contemplation of earthly vanity: are we not here to make the transitory permanent? This we can do only if we know how to value both.
115
A rainbow which lasts a quarter of an hour is looked at no more.
116
It used to happen, and still happens, to me to take no pleasure in a work of art at the first sight of it, because it is too much for me; but if I suspect any merit in it, I try to get at it; and then I never fail to make the most gratifying discoveries, – to find new qualities in the work itself and new faculties in myself.
117
Faith is private capital, kept in one's own house. There are public savings-banks and loan-offices, which supply individuals in their day of need; but here the creditor quietly takes his interest for himself.
118
Real obscurantism is not to hinder the spread of what is true, clear, and useful, but to bring into vogue what is false.
119
During a prolonged study of the lives of various men both great and small, I came upon this thought: In the web of the world the one may well be regarded as the warp, the other as the woof. It is the little men, after all, who give breadth to the web, and the great men firmness and solidity; perhaps, also, the addition of some sort of pattern. But the scissors of the Fates determine its length, and to that all the rest must join in submitting itself.
120
Truth is a torch, but a huge one, and so it is only with blinking eyes that we all of us try to get past it, in actual terror of being burnt.
121
'The wise have much in common with one another.' Æschylus.
122
The really foolish thing in men who are otherwise intelligent is that they fail to understand what another person says, when he does not exactly hit upon the right way of saying it.
123
Because a man speaks, he thinks he is able to speak about language.
124
One need only grow old to become gentler in one's judgments. I see no fault committed which I could not have committed myself.
125
The man who acts never has any conscience; no one has any conscience but the man who thinks.
126
Why should those who are happy expect one who is miserable to die before them in a graceful attitude, like the gladiator before the Roman mob?
127
Some one asked Timon about the education of his children. 'Let them,' he said, 'be instructed in that which they will never understand.'
128
There are people whom I wish well, and would that I could wish better.
129
By force of habit we look at a clock that has run down as if it were still going, and we gaze at the face of a beauty as though she still loved.
130
Hatred is active displeasure, envy passive. We need not wonder that envy turns so soon to hatred.
131
There is something magical in rhythm; it even makes us believe that we possess the sublime.
132
Dilettantism treated seriously, and knowledge pursued mechanically, end by becoming pedantry.
133
No one but the master can promote the cause of Art. Patrons help the master, – that is right and proper; but that does not always mean that Art is helped.
134
The most foolish of all errors is for clever young men to believe that they forfeit their originality in recognising a truth which has already been recognised by others.
135
Scholars are generally malignant when they are refuting others; and if they think a man is making a mistake, they straightway look upon him as their mortal enemy.
136
Beauty can never really understand itself.
