Nicht um meine Sprache zu verlernen, lerne ich andere Sprachen, sondern ich gehe bloß durch fremde Gärten, um für meine Sprache Blumen zu holen. - Johann Gottfried Herder

A learned society of our day, no doubt with the loftiest of intentions, has proposed the question, “Which people, in history, might have been the happiest?” If I properly understand the question, and if it is not altogether beyond the scope of a human answer, I can think of nothing to say except that at a certain time and under certain circumstances every people must have experienced such a moment or else it never was [a people]. Then again, human nature is no vessel for an absolute, independent, immutable happiness, as defined by the philosopher; rather, she everywhere draws as much happiness towards herself as she can: a supple clay that will conform to the most different situations, needs, and depressions. Even the image of happiness changes with every condition and location (for what is it ever but the sum of “the satisfaction of desire, the fulfillment of purpose, and the gentle overcoming of needs,” all of which are shaped by land, time, and place?). Basically, then, all comparison becomes futile. As soon as the inner meaning of happiness, the inclination has changed; as soon as external opportunities and needs develop and solidify the other meaning — who could compare the different satisfaction of different meanings in different worlds? Who could compare the shepherd and father of the Orient, the ploughman and the artisan, the seaman, runner, conqueror of the world? It is not the laurel wreath that matters, nor the sight of the blessed flock, neither the merchant vessels nor the conquered armies’ standards — but the soul that needed this, strove for it, finally attained it and wanted to attain nothing else. Every nation has its center of happiness within itself, as every ball has its center of gravity!

Jeder liebt sein Land, seine Sitten, seine Sprache, sein Weib, seine Kinder, nicht weil sie die besten auf der Welt, sondern weil sie die bewährten Seinigen sind, und er in ihnen sich und seine Mühe selbst liebt.

After the mother tongue follows French, for it is the most widely spoken and indispensable language of Europe; according to our present-day standards it is the most cultivated; fine style and the expressions of taste have been for the most part formed in this language and translated from it into others; it is the simplest and most uniform of languages from which to obtain a foretaste of philosophical grammar; it is the most suitable for the purposes of narrative, logic and reasoning. It must therefore, by the standards of our modern world, follow immediately after the mother tongue and precede every other, even Latin. I would like even the scholar to know French better than Latin!