Maxims and Reflections of Goethe

This book deals with the reflections and maxims of Goethe, the greatest German poet. "There is nothing worth thinking but it has been thought before; we must only try to think it again. The longer I live, the more it grieves me to see man, who occupies his supreme place for the very purpose of imposing his will upon nature, and freeing himself and his from an outrageous necessity, to see him taken up with some false notion, and doing just the opposite of what he wants to do; and then, because the whole bent of his mind is spoilt, bungling miserably over everything."