Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and Travels, Vol. I Quotes

“school-boy. The spectators thou regardest as on work-days they regard each other. For thee, then, it may be well to wish thyself behind a desk, over ruled ledgers, collecting tolls, and picking out reversions. Thou feelest not the co-operating, co-inspiring”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and Travels, Vol. I

“(Wilheim:) "In a society where there is no dissimulation, but where each without disguise pursues the bent of his own humour, elegance and satisfaction cannot long continue; and, where dissimulation always reigns, they do not enter at all. It will not be amiss, then, that we take up dissimulation to begin with, and then, behind our masks, be as candid as we please."

"Yes," said Laertes: "it is on this account that one goes on so pleasantly with women; they never show themselves in their natural form."

"That is to say," replied Madam Melina, "they are not so vain as men, who conceive themselves to be always amiable enough, just as nature has produced them.".”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and Travels, Vol. I