When we take men only as they are, we make them worse; when we treat them as if they were what they ought to be, we bring them to the point to which they are to be brought. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

When we take men only as they are, we make them worse; when we treat them as if they were what they ought to be, we bring them to the point to which they are to be brought.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Related topics

men ought point take treat worse

Related quotes

Although men are accused of not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps few know their own strength. It is in men as in soils, where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not of.

Jonathan Swift

Competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point and no further, but cooperation, which is the thing we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

The time of illusion, then, is the beautiful moment of passion; it represents the artistic zone in which the poet or romance writer ought to be free to do the very best that he can.

Lafcadio Hearn

There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take, they're necessary to reach the places we've chosen to go.

Richard Bach

If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.

Cardinal Richelieu