[The following outburst is from the entry dated “August 12,” in THE SORROWS OF YOUNG WERTHER by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe; translated by Elizabeth Mayer and Louise Bogan.]
“O you rational people,” I exclaimed, smiling. “Passion! Drunkenness! Madness! You stand there so complacently, without any real sympathy, you moralists, condemning the drunkard, detesting the madman, passing by like the Levite, and thanking God that you are not made as one of these. I myself have been drunk more than once; my passions have never been very far removed from madness, and yet I do not feel any remorse. For I have learned in my own way that all unusual people who have accomplished something great or seemingly impossible have always been proclaimed to be drunk or mad.
“But even in everyday life it is unbearable to hear people say of almost anyone who acts in a rather free, noble or unexpected way: ‘That man is drunk, or he is crazy!’ Shame on you sober ones! Shame on you sages!”