Whatever we may say against collections, which present authors in a disjointed form, they nevertheless bring about many excellent results. We are not always so composed, so full of wisdom, that we are able to take in at once the whole scope of a work according to its merits. Do we not mark in a book passages which seem to have a direct reference to ourselves? Young people especially, who have failed in acquiring a complete cultivation of mind, are roused in a praiseworthy way by brilliant passages.

A state of true and universal tolerance is best ensured by leaving alone the peculiarities of men and peoples.

It is better to do the smallest thing in the world than to hold half an hour to be too small a thing.

To tremble before anticipated evils is to bemoan what thou hast never lost.

Whatever liberates our spirit, without also giving us mastery over ourselves, is destructive.

No sacred fane requires us to submit to insult.

What am I then...? Everything that I have seen, heard, and observed I have collected and exploited. My works have been nourished by countless different individuals, by innocent and wise ones, people of intelligence and dunces. Childhood, maturity and old age all have brought me their thoughts....their perspectives on life. I have often reaped what others have sowed. My work is the work of a collective being that bears the name Goethe.