quote · Source-linked selection
The history of philosophy, of science, of religion, all shows that opinions spread in masses, but that that always comes to the front which is more easily grasped, that is to say, is most suited and agreeable to the human mind in its ordinary condition. Nay, he who has practised self-culture in the higher sense may always reckon upon meeting an adverse majority.
The history of philosophy, of science, of religion, all shows that opinions spread in masses, but that that always comes to the front which is more easily grasped, that is to say, is most suited and agreeable to the human mind in its ordinary condition. Nay, he who has practised self-culture in the higher sense may always reckon upon meeting an adverse majority.
Approximate author period: c. 1790 AD · early modern
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- Author or tradition
- Goethe
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- 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 546; Bailey Saunders English translation, New York: The Macmillan Company,1906
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The voice behind the words.
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.
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