Maxims and Reflections (Penguin Classics)

One of my top 5 books ever!

Goethe had a habit of scribbling down his thoughts whenever they came to him and on whatever scraps of paper fell to hand. This then is the complete collection of those jottings, comprising 1,413 little fragments of thought. As an experiment I spent the couple of days whilst I was reading this volume trying to come up with a maxim or reflection of my own, and whilst I was able to jot down a few, I don't think anyone would gain great insight from them.Perhaps practice is needed, and even Goethe didn't get it right all the time. There are some clangers and duds in this collection as well as many thoughts and ideas that do the great man no credit at all. However you do get a sense of how his mind worked and how he saw the universe. He was, for example, anti the scientific method believing instead that common sense and logical argument could prove the nature of the world; he thought that poetry was nearer a religious experience than an art and that the function of painting and sculpture - the plastic arts as he called them - was to describe nature. He covers a lot of ground here, art, science, ancient philosophers, modern manners, geology, physics, politics and more all condensed into pithy observations or comments mostly of only a very few lines.I don't really recommend reading this from cover to cover as it becomes very hard to focus properly on each thought. It's more a book for dipping into and highlighting thoughts and ideas that strike you as interesting or relevant to today's world - many are spot on and one or two reminded me very much of people I know or situations I have been in. There isn't an easy overarching philosophy here, unlike, say Marcus Aurelius' Meditations but Goethe is an interesting conversationalist and as he says himself makes for an interesting time even when he knows what he is saying is not true.

The man must be the most clever man that ever lived. Some maxims are very pretentious some are too complicated some are overblown but I must admit some are very fine. He seemed expert in everything. You must dig deep and on the end you will find some gold nuggets. I read this book occasionally and is a companion piece to Gratian Balthasar, Chesterton or C.S. Lewis. Definitely a must read.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (born Aug. 28,1749,Frankfurt am Main-died March 22,1832,Weimar,Saxe-Weimar). German poet,novelist,playright and natural philosopher.His chief masterpiece,the philosophical drama FAUST (Part 1,1808;Part 11 1832) concerns the struggle of the soul for knowledge,power,happiness and salvation.Maxims and Reflections is a collection of thoughts and observations, covering a wide variety of subjects.His thoughts on ethics,literature,art and the natural sciences are portrayed in 6 Sections. 1-FROM ELECTED AFFINITIES (1809),FROM ART AND ANTIQUITY IN written from 1818-1827,FROM THE PERIODICAL ISSUES ON MORHOLOGY(1822),FROM THE PERIODICAL ISSUES ON THE NATURAL SCIENCES(1823),FROM WILHELM MEISTER'S JOURNEYMAN YEARS(1829),And POSTHUMOUS.There are 1,413 maxims and reflections from the one of the giants of world literature.It's pocket size. Short, sweet and expressive obervations on life in an eloquent and laconic style.I carry it with me everywhere.here is a little taste:"...hatred is active displeasure,envy is passive,hence one not be suprised when envy turns into hatred..." #247 from ART AN ANTIQUITY"...a merry companion is like a cart to give us a lift along our way..."#236 from ART AND ANTIQUITY"...when a rainbow last more than a quarter of an hour,we stop looking at it...#161- From ART AND ANTIQUITY

A must read for every year !! Shines a very bright light on follies to avoid whilst taking a path less travelled

Is Goethe dead? His immense reputation in the 19th century among English writers (Lewes wrote a splendid biography of him, Carlyle translated WILHELM MEISTER, Arnold and George Eliot considered him one of the greatest writers ever, etc.)isn't merely diminshed, it's disappear from sight.James Joyce punningly said that the great masters were "Dainty, Gouty, and Shopkeeper". T.S. Eliot was ready to agree with 2/3 of that estimate, but he disliked Goethe, mostly because Goethe was indifferent to Christianity (though not necessarily to some form of Theism).I admit that Goethe has something of the quality of a stuffed shirt. His Weimar days are hard to fathom, why he wanted to be an official, and often he seems to be speaking ex cathedra when his opinions are just garden-variety stuff.If you don't read German, his lyric poetry is a closed book, in spite of David Luke's excellent translations in a Penguin paperback. His scientific pursuits are more of biographical than intrinsic interest, and FAUST is best digested in small amounts (and Book 2 can be safely ignored).Still, there's enough in his novels and books like the one I'm reviewing to make him interesting to read. He's harder to appreciate than Dante, and of course Shakespeare is the major figure in Joyce's trio. Nevertheless, it's easy to understand why his status was once greater than it can be to a modern common reader.

『ゲーテ格言集』の日本語版を、40年近く前に初めて読み、どこがよいのかわからなかった。今回も日本語訳を読んだが、つまらなかったので、訳が悪いのかと思い、この英語版を読んでみた。しかしやはりつまらない。ゲーテの箴言は、今読むと、当たり前すぎるものが多いように思われる。ゲーテの時代は、このような陳腐な発言がありがたがられる時代だったのか、と拍子抜けしてしまうことがしばしばある。追記：Ｐ．ドラッカーの本を読んでいたら、次のような一節に出会った。もしゲーテの詩がすべて失われており、余技の光学や哲学の業績が残っていただけならば、百科事典の脚注にも値しなかったに違いない。（『ドラッカー名著集１』、ダイヤモンド社、2006、p.105）なるほど、そういうことかと思った。「哲学」としてゲーテの言葉を検討してみると、歴史上画期的な哲学・思想というものは、必ず「現実」についての反省があり、新たな世界観を提示し、そこから当為(なすべきこと)を導き出しているのに対し、ゲーテの世界観では、とりたてて「現実」に対する考察が加えられているわけではなく、その結果　導き出される「当為」も　さして新味のあるものではなくなっている、ということになろうか。