"‘Wenn wir sagtest Du,’ die Menschen nur nehmen, ‘wie sie sind, so machen wir sie schlechter; wenn wir sie behandeln als wären sie, was sie sein sollten, so bringen wir sie dahin, wohin sie zu bringen sind.’"
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Variant translations: — 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. — As quoted in The Irish Monthly: A Magazine of General Literature (1881), Winged Words, pp. 163-164, M. H. Gill & Son, Dublin. — If we treat people as if they were what they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.” — As quoted in The Honolulu Advertiser, The Mature Parent:
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Johann_Wolfgang_von_Goethe
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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
1749 – 1832
deutscher Dichter
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