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| 7544 | Many people imagine that to experience is to understand |
| Full Idea: There are many people who imagine that what they experience they also understand. | |||
| From: Wolfgang von Goethe (Maxims and Reflections [1825], 889) | |||
| A reaction: This should be posted over the arrivals gate of every international airport, for returning holiday-makers. It seems to place Goethe on the rationalist side of the debate with empiricism. It is hard to explain 'understanding' in Humean terms. |
| 7541 | Man never understands how anthropomorphic he is |
| Full Idea: Man never understands how anthropomorphic he is. | |||
| From: Wolfgang von Goethe (Maxims and Reflections [1825], 203) | |||
| A reaction: Nice. It is true, even when it is pointed out to us. No matter how hard we try to realise how very different animals are from us, we can't help identifying with them. Religious people even do it with inanimate creation. |
| 7543 | We gain self-knowledge through action, not thought - especially when doing our duty |
| Full Idea: How can we learn self-knowledge? Never by taking thought, but rather by action. Try to do your duty and you'll soon discover what you're like. | |||
| From: Wolfgang von Goethe (Maxims and Reflections [1825], 442) | |||
| A reaction: Good! I even like the unfashionable bit about duty. If you just do what you want, you will discover your interests, but not so much about your capacities. However, when you have to do something less comfortable, it is very revealing. |
| 7540 | Beauty is a manifestation of secret natural laws |
| Full Idea: Beauty is a manifestation of secret natural laws which without this appearance would have remained eternally hidden from us. | |||
| From: Wolfgang von Goethe (Maxims and Reflections [1825], 183) | |||
| A reaction: An interesting defence of beauty as an objective feature of the world. I'm not sure. Much beauty is indeed the result of growth or erosion expressing underlying laws, but then I have always thought there was a sexual component to visual beauty. |
| 7538 | The happiest people link the beginning and end of life |
| Full Idea: The happiest man is one who can link the end of his life with its beginning. | |||
| From: Wolfgang von Goethe (Maxims and Reflections [1825], 140) | |||
| A reaction: [from 'Art and Antiquity']. A nice thought, which chimes in with the idea that a good life is like a complete story or a work of art (Idea 7501), or that it is 'eudaimon'. |
| 7542 | The best form of government teaches us to govern ourselves |
| Full Idea: You ask which form of government is the best? Whichever teaches us to govern ourselves. | |||
| From: Wolfgang von Goethe (Maxims and Reflections [1825], 353) | |||
| A reaction: Not a fashionable view, since the rise of freedom as the highest political ideal, but I identify with the idea that a good government should educate, and should try to facilitate virtue as well as pleasure. |
| 7539 | To get duties from people without rights, you must pay them well |
| Full Idea: If you demand duties from people and will not concede them rights, you have to pay them well. | |||
| From: Wolfgang von Goethe (Maxims and Reflections [1825], 180) | |||
| A reaction: [from 'Art and Antiquity']. ...or have great power over them. Goethe gives the optimistic liberal view, rather than the Marxist view. |