Thursday, September 14, 2023
For the Benefit of Humanity
Katharina Mommsen, Goethe's Art of Living, tr. John Crosetto et al. (Victoria: Katharina Mommsen Press, 2003), p. 29:
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Faced with restrictions and obstacles to his good intentions he encountered at court and in political circles, Goethe sighed over the discrepancy between wishing and achieving in his letter of March 6, 1780 to his Weimar friend, Carl F. von Knebel: "In youth one is confident that one can build palaces for humanity and when it comes to it, one has one's hands full to clear out their dung."The recipient of the letter wasn't von Knebel—it was Johann Kaspar Lavater. Here is the German:
In der Jugend traut man sich zu daß man den Menschen Palläste bauen könne und wenn's um und an kömmt so hat man alle Hände voll zu thun um ihren Mist beiseite bringen zu können.
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