# Quote — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

> That children don't know why they want what they want, all learned teachers and judges are unanimous. But that adults, just like children, tumble about in the world without knowing where they come from and where they're going—that they act in accordance with their avowed aims just as little as children do—that they can be ruled by cookies and cakes and lashes just as easily as children—this no one wants to believe, although it seems to me so palpably true.

- Author: [Johann Wolfgang von Goethe](https://www.leafyquotes.com/johann-wolfgang-von-goethe.md)
- Book: [The Sorrows of Young Werther](https://www.leafyquotes.com/johann-wolfgang-von-goethe/the-sorrows-of-young-werther.md)
- Original (de): Daß die Kinder nicht wissen, warum sie wollen, darin sind alle hochgelahrten Schul- und Hofmeister einig; daß aber auch Erwachsene gleich Kindern auf diesem Erdboden herumtaumeln und wie jene nicht wissen, woher sie kommen und wohin sie gehen, ebensowenig nach wahren Zwecken handeln, ebenso durch Biskuit und Kuchen und Birkenreiser regiert werden: das will niemand gern glauben, und mich dünkt, man kann es mit Händen greifen.
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Sorrows_of_Young_Werther#Quotes) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/johann-wolfgang-von-goethe/the-sorrows-of-young-werther/that-children-dont

## More from this book

> I know very well that we are not all equal, nor can be so; but it is my opinion that he who deems it important to keep aloof from the so-called rabble in order to maintain their respect is as culpable as a coward who hides himself from his enemy because he fears defeat.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/johann-wolfgang-von-goethe/the-sorrows-of-young-werther/i-know-very.md)

> I have been more than once intoxicated, my passions have always bordered on extravagance: I am not ashamed to confess it; for I have learned, by my own experience, that all extraordinary men, who have accomplished great and astonishing actions, have ever been decried by the world as drunken or insane.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/johann-wolfgang-von-goethe/the-sorrows-of-young-werther/i-have-been.md)

> If only, dear friend, these precious treasures, beautiful and priceless as they are, were not so fragile too.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/johann-wolfgang-von-goethe/the-sorrows-of-young-werther/if-only-dear.md)