Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
I hate every violent overthrow, because as much is destroyed as is gained by it.
von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, and Johann Peter Eckermann. Conversations of Goethe with Eckermann and Soret. Translated by John Oxenford, Smith, Elder & Co., 1850, p. 129.
1st Earl of Beaconsfield
Harding, not the most historically knowledgeable of American Presidents, had forgotten the revolutionary origin of the United States or its drastically experimental nature. It was the fear of Communism and the Russian Revolution that gave revolution a bad name at the time.
The African National Congress violent attack on apartheid in South Africa was amazing in the sense that with all the anger and the terrible behavior including murder and shooting of unarmed demonstrators, the ANC not only urged rejection of terrorism against civilians but managed to keep their followers under control. When apartheid finally fell and the ANC Black majority government came to power, the lack of retribution was not only a model of reconciliation for the world but maintained the best industrial economy in Africa.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, critic, and amateur artist. His works include: four novels; epic and lyric poetry; prose and verse dramas; memoirs; an autobiography; literary and aesthetic criticism; and treatises on botany, anatomy, and colour. He is considered to be the greatest German literary figure of the modern era.
