Try an author, a thought, or a phrase in “quotes”.↑ ↓ Navigate · Esc Close

Type a word, saying or author to search.

Browse the library ↗

But every one is an eclectic who, out of the things that surround and take place about him, appropriates what is suited to his nature; and this is what is meant by culture and progress, in matters of theory or practice.

But every one is an eclectic who, out of the things that surround and take place about him, appropriates what is suited to his nature; and this is what is meant by culture and progress, in matters of theory or practice.

Approximate author period: c. 1790 AD · early modern

Meaning not yet available

An individual explanation has not yet been added. We do not substitute a generic description for an interpretation of these particular words.

Begin with source-checked readings and explanations ↗
▷ Play from here
Attribution & collection notes
Author or tradition
Goethe
Attribution: attributed
Country attributed
Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin.
Historical period
Approximate author period: c. 1790 AD · early modern
author lifetime midpoint (1749–1832); not quotation composition date
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken.
Recorded source
Maxims and Reflections (1906) (1906 AD)

Printed maxim 437; Bailey Saunders English translation, New York: The Macmillan Company,1906

A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.

The voice behind the words.

Goethe: Painted portrait, 1828

Listed in the author section of Bartlett’s ninth-edition anthology, in the linked 1905 printing. Dates reflect that historical edition and may differ from modern scholarship.

More from Goethe ↗