Maxims and Reflections
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von The passing thoughts Goethe jotted down during his long, varied, and hectic life -- thankfully preserved on theater programs, visiting cards, draft manuscripts, and bills -- show him to be the last true "Renaissance man" of Europe. Although employed as a privy councillor at the Duke of Weimar's court, he also painted, directed plays, carried out research in the classics, anatomy, botany, and optics, and still found time to produce masterpieces...