Speaking for myself, I too believe that humanity will win in the long run; I am only afraid that at the same time the world will have turned into one huge hospital where everyone is everybody else's humane nurse.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Italian Journey, Naples, May 27, 1787

How amazing that Goethe anticipated the welfare state in all its oppressive futility! Would that he had confined himself to travel writing and prophecy instead of churning out all those boring interminable plays.


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