Say what we may of the inadequacy of translation, yet the work is and will always be one of the weightiest and worthiest undertakings in the general concerns of the world.

The public wishes itself to be managed like a woman; one must say nothing to it except what it likes to hear.

The clever reader who is capable or reading between these lines what does not stand written in them but is nevertheless implied will be able to form some conception.

Some of our weaknesses are born in us, others are the result of education; it is a question which of the two gives us most trouble.

It is a great error to take oneself for more than one is, or for less than one is worth.

The worst is that the very hardest thinking will not bring thoughts. They must come like good children of God and cry, "Here we are." You expend effort and energy thinking hard. Then, after you have given up, they come sauntering in with their hands in their pockets. If the effort had not been made to open the door, however, who knows when they could have come.

I have often reaped what others have sowed. My work is the work of a collective being that bears the name Goethe.