Maxims of Goethe 4

The longer I live, the more it grieves me to see man, who occupies his supreme place for the very purpose of imposing his will upon nature, and freeing himself and his from an outrageous necessity—to see him taken up with some false notion, and doing just the opposite of what he wants to do; and then, because the whole bent of his mind is spoiled, bungling miserably over everything. 

IMAGE: Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein, Portrait of Goethe in the Country (undated)