Johann Wolfgang von Goethe? Carl Sandburg? Ruth Strang? Johann Peter Eckermann? John Oxenford? Henry R. Tedder? Apocryphal?
Question for Quote Investigator: When the famous German intellectual Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was an octogenarian he spoke to a friend about the effort required to read a text carefully and deeply. He said something like the following:
Ordinary people know little of the time and effort it takes to learn to read. I have been at it eighty years, and have not reached my goal.
I have not been able to find a citation for this statement. Hence, I am not certain whether it is accurate.
I believe that the U.S. poet and biographer Carl Sandburg also commented on the multi-decade process of learning to read productively. Would you please explore the provenance of this saying?
Reply from Quote Investigator: Johann Peter Eckermann served as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s personal secretary during the final decade of his life. After Goethe’s death Eckermann published a multi-volume work titled “Gespräche mit Goethe” (“Conversations with Goethe”) which included an entry dated January 25, 1830. Here is a translation of an excerpt. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
He then joked about the difficulty of reading and the arrogance of many people who want to read every philosophical and scientific work straight away without any preliminary studies or preparatory knowledge, as if it were nothing more than a novel.
“The good people,” he continued, “don’t know how much time and effort it cost to learn to read. It took me eighty years to do it and I still can’t say that I’ve reached my goal.”
Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
Eckermann published the first two volumes of “Gespräche mit Goethe” (“Conversations with Goethe”) in 1836. The target quotation appeared in the third supplementary volume of 1848. Here is the German passage from the 1848 supplement:2
Er scherzte darauf über die Schwierigkeit des Lesens und den Dünkel vieler Leute, die ohne alle Vorstudien und vorbereitenden Kenntnisse sogleich jedes philosophische und wissenschaftliche Werk lesen möchten, als wenn es eben nichts weiter als ein Roman wäre.
„Die guten Leutchen, fuhr er fort, wissen nicht, was es Einem für Zeit und Mühe gekostet, um lesen zu lernen. Ich habe achtzig Jahre dazu gebraucht, und kann noch jetzt nicht sagen, daß ich am Ziele wäre.“
An English translation by John Oxenford appeared in 1850. Unfortunately, Oxenford’s rendition contained a crucial error. The year was specified as “eighteen” instead of eighty:3
He then joked upon the difficulty of reading, and the presumption of many people, who, without any previous study and preparatory knowledge, would at once read every philosophical and scientific work, as if it were nothing but a romance.
“The good people,” continued he, “know not what time and trouble it costs to learn to read. I have been employed for eighteen years on it, and cannot say that I have reached the goal yet.”
In 1907 “The Library Association Record” published a piece titled “The Librarian In Relation To Books” by Henry R. Tedder which included a mention of the quotation:4
Goethe in one of his conversations with Eckermann said that people did not know how much time and trouble it took to learn how to read; he himself had been eighty years in the attempt and could not claim to have attained his aim. I have not the vanity to attempt to teach where Goethe had failed . . .
In 1915 an article in “The Journal of the New York State Teachers’ Association” contained the following instance of the quotation:5
On the 25th of January, 1830, Goethe said to Eckermann: “The dear good people don’t know what time and toil it has taken one to learn to read. I have been at it for 80 years and cannot say even now that I have attained the goal.”
In 1916 an advertisement containing an instance appeared in the New York periodical “Educational Foundations”:6
The good world does not know what it costs in time and in pains to learn to read and profit by one’s reading; I have put into it eighty years. —Goethe.
In 1930 “The Bookman” journal of London offered a prize for an explication of the quotation:7
HALF A GUINEA for the best commentary, in not more than one hundred and fifty words, of Goethe’s remark: “The dear good people don’t know how long it takes to learn to read. I’ve been at it eighty years, and can’t say yet that I’ve reached the goal.”
In 1949 “Teachers College Record” published an address delivered by Professor of Education Ruth Strang who credited Goethe with a variant of the quotation that did not contain the word “eighty”:8
“Learning to read,” as the philosopher Goethe said when he was eighty, “is a lifetime process. I have been at it all my life, and I cannot yet say I have reached the goal.”
In 1950 Carl Sandburg published an essay titled “Trying To Write” in “The Atlantic Monthly”, and he stated the following:9
I have written by different methods and in a wide miscellany of moods and have seldom been afraid to travel in lands and seas where I met fresh scenes and new songs. All my life I have been trying to learn to read, to see and hear, and to write.
At sixty-five I began my first novel, and the five years lacking a month I took to finish it, I was still traveling, still a seeker.
Also, in 1950 Sandburg released the collection “Complete Poems Carl Sandburg”, and his preface included the quotation above.10
In 1955 N. F. Donald and Harry Bell published the textbook “Planned Interpretation” which contained a version of Goethe’s remark:11
Reading is not an accomplishment we master in our primary or preparatory schools and then can take for granted. We can go on learning to read all our days: widening our range, improving our judgement, refining our taste, increasing our enjoyment. When he was near the end of his life Goethe wrote to his friend Eckermann: ‘Ordinary people know little of the time and effort it takes to learn to read. I have been eighty years at it and have not yet reached my goal.’ So now in the right spirit, we can apply ourselves to practising how best to read with understanding, enjoyment, and profit.
In 1981 “The Fitzhenry & Whiteside Book of Quotations” included the following entry:12
Ordinary people know little of the time and effort it takes to learn to read. I have been eighty years at it, and have not reached my goal.
Johann von Goethe
In 1990 “What a Piece of Work Is Man!: Camp’s Unfamiliar Quotations from 2,000 B.C. to the Present” contained the following entry:13
People do not understand what it costs in time and suffering to learn how to read. I have been working at it for eighty years, and I still can’t say that I’ve succeeded.
Goethe, in Eckermann’s Conversations, 1836
In summary, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe deserves credit for what he said in 1830 as remembered and published by his friend Johann Peter Eckermann in 1848. Different renditions into English have appeared during the ensuing decades. Carl Sandburg deserves credit for the thematically related remark he published in 1950.
Image Notes: Painting of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe titled “Goethe in the Roman Campagna” created by Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein circa 1787. The image has been cropped and resized.
Acknowledgement: Great thanks to Laura Goering whose inquiry led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration. Goering’s old personal notes contained the following instance credited to Goethe, but the source was missing: “The good people don’t realize how much time and effort is required to learn to read. I have taken eighty years for this, and I can’t yet say that I’ve reached my goal.” Also, thanks to Goering for pointing out a typo.
- Website: DTA (German Text Archive), Book Year: 1848, Book Title: Gespräche mit Goethe in den letzten Jahren seines Lebens (Conversations with Goethe in the last years of his life), Book Author: Johann Peter Eckermann, Dritter Theil (Third Part), Publication Info: Heinrichshofen’sche Buchhandlung, Magdeburg, Entry Date: 25 Januar 1830 (January 25, 1830), Quote Page 281, Website description: German Text Archive published by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Berlin, German. (Accessed deutschestextarchiv.de on July 18, 2024) link ↩︎
- Website: DTA (German Text Archive), Book Year: 1848, Book Title: Gespräche mit Goethe in den letzten Jahren seines Lebens (Conversations with Goethe in the last years of his life), Book Author: Johann Peter Eckermann, Dritter Theil (Third Part), Publication Info: Heinrichshofen’sche Buchhandlung, Magdeburg, Entry Date: 25 Januar 1830 (January 25, 1830), Quote Page 281, Website description: German Text Archive published by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Berlin, German. (Accessed deutschestextarchiv.de on July 18, 2024) link ↩︎
- 1850, Conversations of Goethe with Eckermann and Soret, Translated from the German by John Oxenford, Volume 2 of 2, Date: January 25, 1830 (Supplement), Quote Page 218 and 219, Smith, Elder & Company, London. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
- 1907 November 15, The Library Association Record, Volume 9, The Librarian In Relation To Books by Henry R. Tedder (Secretary and Librarian of The Athenaeum), Start Page 604, Quote Page 610, The Library Association, London. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
- 1915 May, The Journal of the New York State Teachers’ Association, Volume 2, Number 4, The Selection of Reading Texts by J. B. E Jonas (Julia Richman High School, New York), Start Page 132, Quote Page 138, Column 2, The New York State Teachers’ Association, Rochester, New York. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
- 1916 April, Educational Foundations, Volume 27, Number 8, Classified Section, (Advertisement for “The Book Buyers’ League”), Unnumbered Page, Educational Magazine Publishing Company, New York. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
- 1930 August, The Bookman, Volume 78, Number 467, The Bookman Prize Competitions August 1930, The Prizes Offered This Month Are, Quote Page 280, Hodder & Stoughton, London, England. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1949 November, Teachers College Record, Volume 51, Number 2, How Students Improve Their Reading by Ruth Strang (Professor of Education, Teachers College), (An Address given in the All-College Lecture Series at Teachers College on July 13, 1949), Start Page 82, Quote Page 89, Column 2, Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1950 September, The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 186, Number 3, Trying To Write by Carl Sandburg, Start Page 31, Quote Page 33 Column 2, The Atlantic Monthly Company, Concord, New Hampshire. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1950, Complete Poems Carl Sandburg by Carl Sandburg, Section: Notes for a Preface, Quote Page xxix, Harcourt, Brace And Company, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1969 reprint (First published 1955), Planned Interpretation: The Oxford Comprehension Course V by N. F. Donald and Harry Bell, Part One: General Plan, Introduction, Quote Page 14, Oxford University Press, London. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1981, The Fitzhenry & Whiteside Book of Quotations, Edited by Robert I. Fitzhenry, Section: Books and Reading, Quote Page 37, Fitzhenry & Whiteside Limited, Toronto. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1990, What a Piece of Work Is Man!: Camp’s Unfamiliar Quotations from 2,000 B.C. to the Present by Wesley D. Camp, Topic: Reading, Quote Page 289, Prentice Hall, A Division of Simon & Schuster, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. (Verified on Paper) ↩︎