"You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him."
"In all our academies we attempt far too much. ... In earlier times lectures were delivered upon chemistry and botany as branches of medicine, and the medical student learned enough of them. Now, however, chemistry and botany are become sciences of themselves, incapable of comprehension by a hasty survey, and each demanding the study of a whole life, yet we expect the medical student to understand them. He who is prudent, accordingly declines all distracting claims upon his time, and limits himself to a single branch and becomes expert in one thing."
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Source: Conversations with Eckermann. Book by Johann Peter Eckermann and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, February 26, 1824.
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