Every great idea exerts, on first appearing, a tyrannical influence: Hence, the advantages it brings are turned all too soon into disadvantages.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheTruth is contrary to our nature, not so error, and this for a very simple reason: truth demands that we should recognize ourselves as limited, error flatters us that, in one way or another, we are unlimited.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheIt is the strange fate of man, that even in the greatest of evils the fear of the worst continues to haunt him.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe