Maxims and Reflections · Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
174
When I hear people speak of liberal ideas, it is always a wonder to me that men are so readily put off with empty verbiage. An idea cannot be liberal; but it may be potent, vigorous, exclusive, in order to fulfil its mission of being productive. Still less can a concept be liberal; for a concept has quite another mission. Where, however, we must look for liberality, is in the sentiments; and the sentiments are the inner man as he lives and moves. A man's sentiments, however, are rarely liberal, because they proceed directly from him personally, and from his immediate relations and requirements. Further we will not write, and let us apply this test to what we hear every day. If a clever man commits a folly, it is not a small one. There is a poetry without figures of speech, which is a single figure of speech. I went on troubling myself about general ideas until I learnt to understand the particular achievements of the best men. It is only when a man knows little, that he knows anything at all. With knowledge grows doubt. The errors of a man are what make him really lovable. There are men who love their like and seek it; others love their opposite and follow after it. If a man has always let himself think the world as bad as the adversary represents it to be, he must have become a miserable person.
Ill-favour and hatred limit the spectator to the surface, even when keen perception is added unto them; but when keen perception unites with good-will and love, it gets at the heart of man and the world; nay, it may hope to reach the highest goal of all. Raw matter is seen by every one; the contents are found only by him who has his eyes about him; and the form is a secret to the majority. We may learn to know the world as we please: it will always retain a bright and a dark side. Error is continually repeating itself in action, and we must unweariedly repeat the truth in word. As in Rome there is, apart from the Romans, a population of statues, so apart from this real world there is a world of illusion, almost more potent, in which most men live. Mankind is like the Red Sea: the staff has scarcely parted the waves asunder, before they flow together again. Thoughts come back; beliefs persist; facts pass by never to return. Of all peoples, the Greeks have dreamt the dream of life the best. We readily bow to antiquity, but not to posterity. It is only a father that does not grudge talent to his son. There is no virtue in subordinating oneself; but there is virtue in descending, and in recognising anything as above us, which is beneath us. The whole art of living consists in giving up existence in order to exist. All our pursuits and actions are a wearying process. Well is it for him who wearies not. Hope is the second soul of the unhappy. Love is a true renovator. Mankind is not without a wish to serve; hence the chivalry of the French is a servitude. In the theatre the pleasure of what we see and hear restrains our reflections.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.