Maxims for Philologists

Friedrich Ritschl (1806-1876), quoted by Basil L. Gildersleeve, "Friedrich Ritschl," American Journal of Philology 5 (1884) 339-355 (at 349-351, arranged as a list by me, with German to be added as I find it):

• The opinions of the predecessors must be known.
  
• No prejudices.
  
• Fix clearly in your eye what you are after.
  
• Don't be satisfied with half notions, squinting thoughts. Penetrate into the heart of the matter with your interpretation.
  
• Don't glide over what you don't understand.
  
• Don't admit to yourself that there is more than one right.
  
• Distinguish sharply between the possible and the impossible.
  
• Cultivate the feeling of truth.
  
• Never grow weary in trying to find ways.
  
• Don't try to explain everything.
  
• Don't go into criticism until you exhaust hermeneutics.
  
• Hold the mean between audacity and timidity.
  
• Enthusiasm dwells only in specialization. (Enthusiasmus liegt nur in der Einseitigkeit.)
  
• Read, read much, read very much, read as much as possible. (Lesen, viel lesen, sehr viel lesen, möglichst viel lesen.)
  
• A problem must leave you no rest or peace, by day or by night, until it is solved. (Nicht Ruhe noch Rast muss ein Problem lassen bei Tag und bei Nacht.)

Note to myself: search for more of the German in "Zur Methode des philologischen Studiums (Bruchstücke und Aphorismen)," in Ritschl's Kleine Philologische Schriften Bd. V (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1879), pp. 19-32, and in Otto Ribbeck, Friedrich Wilhelm Ritschl: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Philologie (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1879).