Advice? When did men ever heed it? Wise
Words merely freeze to death in ears of stone.
Deeds self-discredited as soon as done
Still teach the headstrong nothing.
Was Rat! Hat Rat bei Menschen je gegolten?
Ein kluges Wort erstarrt im harten Ohr.
So oft auch Tat sich grimmig selbst gescholten,
Bleibt doch das Volk selbstwillig wie zuvor.
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
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Tuesday, March 30, 2021
Advice
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), Faust, Part 2, Act 2, lines 8106-8109 (tr. David Luke):