Let no one be like another, yet everyone like the highest. How is this done? Be each one perfect in himself.

And here, poor fool, with all my lore I stand no wiser than before.

It is natural to man to regard himself as the final cause of creation.

Women are silver dishes into which we put golden apples.

Who never ate his bread in sorrow, Who never spent the darksome hours Weeping, and watching for the morrow,- He knows you not, ye heavenly Powers.

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.

Beware of dissipating your powers; strive constantly to concentrate them.