People have to become really bad before they care for nothing but mischief, and delight in it.
“
Wenn die Menschen recht schlecht werden, haben sie keinen Anteil mehr als die Schadenfreude.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
What It Means
This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Wenn die Menschen recht schlecht werden, haben sie keinen Anteil mehr als die Schadenfreude." in the context of "People have to become really bad before they care for nothing but mischief, and delight in it." 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,