Begin by instructing yourself, then you will receive instruction from others.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheSome books seem to have been written, not to teach us anything, but to let us know that the author has known something.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheIf we meet someone who owes us a debt of gratitude, we remember the fact at once. How often we can meet someone to whom we owe a debt of gratitude without thinking about it at all!
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheIt is quite beyond me how anyone can believe God speaks to us in books and stories. If the world does not directly reveal to us our relationship to it, if our hearts fail to tell us what we owe ourselves and others, we shall assuredly not learn it from books, which are at best designed but to give names to our errors.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe