Eriol
03-14-2004, 03:35 AM
I found this very great quote from Goethe, who was answering to a schoolboy's request for advice. It is amazing that Goethe was only 22 when he wrote this:
To see the world properly we should not think it is worse or better than it is. Love and hatred are closely connected, and both distort our vision. The thing to do is to look at everything as attentively as possible, to inscribe all things in our memory, never to let a day go by without learning something. Then to apply oneself to those branches of knowledge which give the mind a definite direction, to compose things, to determine values – that is what we have to do now. At the same time we must not want to be something that strives to become everything; and, especially, we must not stand still and rest more often than the weariness of mind and body demands.
Amazing :).
To see the world properly we should not think it is worse or better than it is. Love and hatred are closely connected, and both distort our vision. The thing to do is to look at everything as attentively as possible, to inscribe all things in our memory, never to let a day go by without learning something. Then to apply oneself to those branches of knowledge which give the mind a definite direction, to compose things, to determine values – that is what we have to do now. At the same time we must not want to be something that strives to become everything; and, especially, we must not stand still and rest more often than the weariness of mind and body demands.
Amazing :).