Sublime

Goethe declares that if we had to depend for our life upon the favor of others, we should never have lived at all; from their desire to appear important themselves, people gladly ignore our very existence:

Ingratitude is always a kind of weakness. I have never known men of ability to be ungrateful.

remember that the best education is often to discover these very simple truths for oneself, and learn to see how much there is in commonplaces.

active scepticism;

Au 2, Marienstrasse, l’étudiant travaillait d’ailleurs avec un acharnement digne en tous points de sa « philomathie » (son amour excessif de tout savoir), entrecoupant des heures studieuses en s’accordant quelques pauses dans les auberges au bord du fleuve ;