Not by whichever judgments and standards of academia, but by one’s self burdensome, responsibility with self- and world awareness and knowledge – and Goethe knowledge and awareness – can one speak of him no longer a being of distant peak personage, but a personality, in fact, a person. After and above Goethe one stands more alone – if learned, matured and worn – in the world.
And what substance and sense the inevitable attitudes of those who have never lived beyond and above their inherited ways of thought, word and deed?
Stephen Lapeyrouse . . . Notes Dropped Along the Way 