Nothing is more damaging to a new truth than an old error." - Meaning and context.">
Maxim 715, trans. Stopp

Nothing is more damaging to a new truth than an old error.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Nothing is more damaging to a new truth than an old error." in the context of "Maxim 715, trans. Stopp" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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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
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

About Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

What you can do, or dream you can, begin it,