You've only got to grow old to be more lenient; I see no fault committed of which I too haven't been guilty.
• Maxim 240, trans. Stopp
• Maxim 240, trans. Stopp
“
Man darf nur alt werden, um milder zu sein; ich sehe keinen Fehler begehen, den ich nicht auch begangen hätte.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
What It Means
This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Man darf nur alt werden, um milder zu sein; ich sehe keinen Fehler begehen, den ich nicht auch begangen hätte." in the context of "You've only got to grow old to be more lenient; I see no fault committed of which I too haven't been guilty.
• Maxim 240, 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,