Maxim 39, trans. Stopp
“
Behaviour is a mirror in which everyone shows his image.
• Variant translation: A man's manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
What It Means
This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Behaviour is a mirror in which everyone shows his image.
• Variant translation: A man's manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait." in the context of "Maxim 39, trans. Stopp" to mean that wisdom is timeless.
Source: Wikiquote: "Johann Wolfgang von Goethe" (Quotes, Maxims and Reflections (1833): Full text in German. Translation by Elisabeth Stopp (Penguin, 1998) follows Max Hecker's canonical German edition (1907). Bailey Saunders' selection, The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe (1893), translates 590 of Goethe's 1413 maxims.)
The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
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About Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
What you can do, or dream you can, begin it,