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If some people hadn't felt obliged to repeat what is untrue simply because they had at one point maintained it, they would have turned into quite different people.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Maxims and Reflections (1833)

Wenn mancher sich nicht verpflichtet fühlte, das Unwahre zu wiederholen, weil er’s einmal gefügt hat, fo wären es ganz andere Leute geworden.

Original text (German)

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Notes from Wikiquote

Maxim 586, trans. Stopp

More quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A mathematician is only perfect insofar as he is a perfect man, sensitive to the beauty of truth.

Maxims and Reflections (1833)

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

Elective Affinities (1809)

I had rather be Mercury, the smallest among seven [planets], revolving round the sun, than the first among five [moons] revolving round Saturn.

Of freedom and of life he only is deserving
Who every day must conquer them anew.

Faust, Part 2 (1832)

Properly speaking, such work is never finished; one must declare it so when, according to time and circumstances, one has done one's best.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.