But that is the advantage of a passionate liking for any pursuit, that it carries one to the very bottom of the subject. Besides, seeking and blundering are good, for it is by seeking and blundering that we learn. And, indeed, one learns not merely the thing itself, but everything connected with it.
Das ist aber immer der Vorteil irgendeiner leidenschaftlichen Richtung, daß sie uns in das Innere der Dinge treibt. Auch ist das Suchen und Irren gut, denn durch Suchen und Irren lernt man. Und zwar lernt man nicht blos die Sache, sondern den ganzen Umfang.
"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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Thursday, June 10, 2021
Seeking and Blundering
Goethe, Conversations with Eckermann (Goethe speaking, May 1, 1825; tr. John Oxenford):