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Title: Maxims and Reflections

Author: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Translator: Thomas Bailey Saunders

Release Date: September 8, 2010 [EBook #33670]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAXIMS AND REFLECTIONS ***

Produced by Christine Bell and Marc D'Hooghe at
http://www.freeliterature.org

THE MAXIMS AND REFLECTIONS

OF

GOETHE

TRANSLATED BY BAILEY SAUNDERS

WITH A PREFACE

NEW YORK

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1906

CONTENTS

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
LIFE AND CHARACTER
LITERATURE AND ART
SCIENCE
NATURE: APHORISMS
INDEX

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE

I

The translation of Goethe's "Prose Maxims" now offered to the public is
the first attempt that has yet been made to present the greater part of
these incomparable sayings in English. In the complete collection they
are over a thousand in number, and not more perhaps than a hundred and
fifty have already found their way into our language, whether as
contributions to magazines here and in America, or in volumes of
miscellaneous extract from Goethe's writings. Some are at times quoted
as though they were common literary property. To say that they are
important as a whole would be a feeble tribute to a work eloquent for
itself, and beyond the need of praise; but so deep is the wisdom of
these maxims, so wide their reach, so compact a product are they of
Goethe's wonderful genius, that it is something of a reproach to
literature to find the most of them left untranslated for the sixty
years they have been before the world. From one point of view, the
neglect they have suffered is in no way surprising: they are too high
and severe to be popular so soon; and when they meet with a wide
acceptance as with other great works, much of it will rest upon
authority. But even for the deeper side of his writings, Goethe has not
been denied a fair measure of popular success. No other author of the
last two centuries holds so high a place, or, as an inevitable
consequence, has been attacked by so large an army of editors and
commentators; and it might w