I have been reading a translation of Goethe's . Is it good? To me it seems perhaps the very worst book I ever read. No Englishman could have written such a book. I cannot remember a single good page or idea, and this priggishness is the finest of its kin that I can call to mind. Is it all a practical joke? If it really is Goethe's that I have been reading, I am glad I have never taken the trouble to learn German.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe