"Moral epochs have their course as well..." - Quote by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Moral epochs have their course as well as the seasons. We can no more hold them fast than we can hold sun, moon, and stars. Our faults perpetually return upon us; and herein lies the subtlest difficulty of self-knowledge.
More by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
“One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.”
“Nothing is more odious than the majority, for it consists of a few powerful leaders, a certain number of accommodating scoundrels and submissive weaklings, and a mass of men who trot after them without thinking, or knowing their own minds.”
“Habit is the most imperious of all masters.”
More on Morality
“All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority.”
“Morality is the object of government.”
“It is as expedient that a wicked man be punished as that a sick man be cured by a physician; for all chastisement is a kind of medicine.”
More on Self Knowledge
“The really unhappy person is the one who leaves undone what they can do, and starts doing what they don't understand; no wonder they come to grief.”
“If man made himself the first object of study, he would see how incapable he is of going further. How can a part know the whole?”
“The Greek philosophies teach us that we are a combination of dark and light, good and evil, and murderer and savior, hmm? And until we know this completely about ourselves we cannot love well, and we cannot forgive ourselves.”