"You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him."
"Wood burns because it has the proper stuff for that purpose in it; and a man becomes renowned because he has the necessary stuff in him. Renown is not to be sought, and all pursuit of it is vain. A person may, indeed, by skillful conduct and various artificial means, make a sort of name for himself; but if the inner jewel is wanting, all is vanity, and will not last a day."
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Source: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Peter Eckermann, Frédéric Jacob Soret (1850). “Conversations of Goethe with Eckermann and Soret”, p.103
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