“You often say to yourself in the course of your life that you ought to avoid having too much business, 'polypragmosyne' [incessant activity], and, more especially, that the older you get, the more you ought to avoid entering on new business. But it's all very well saying this, and giving yourself andothers good advice. The very fact of growing older means taking up a new business; all our circumstances change, and we must either stop doing anything at all or else willing and consciously take on the new role we have to play on life’s stage.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Maxim 259, trans. Stopp
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 185

German writer, artist, and politician 1749–1832

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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 185

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