One can stand anything except a succession of ordinary days. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I am amazed to see how deliberately I have entangled myself step by step. To have seen my position so clearly, and yet to have acted so like a child!

Ah, how often I've cursed those foolish pages,
That showed my youthful sufferings to everyone!
If Werther had been my brother, and I'd killed him,
His sad ghost could hardly have persecuted me more.

I have often felt a bitter sorrow at the thought of the German people, which is so estimable in the individual and so wretched in the generality. A comparison of the German people with other peoples arouses a painful feeling, which I try to overcome in every possible way.