“Modern poets put a lot of water into their ink.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Neuere Poeten tun viel Wasser in die Tinte.
Maxim 749, trans. Stopp
Variant translation: Modern poets mix a lot of water with their ink.
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

Original

Neuere Poeten tun viel Wasser in die Tinte.

Maxims and Reflections (1833)

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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 185

German writer, artist, and politician 1749–1832

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“I'm a vegetarian. I'm not strict; I eat fish, and duck. Well, they're nearly fish, aren't they? They're semi-submerged a lot of the time, they spend a lot of time in the water, they're virtually fish, really. And pigs, cows, sheep, anything that lives near water, I'm not strict. I'm sort of like a post-modern vegetarian; I eat meat ironically.”

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Misattributed