Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
We live within a limited circle of relationships, constantly being either owed or owing before we can fully understand our surroundings.
In plain terms
We are always in debt or credit in our small social world.
What can you take from it?
Be mindful of the give‑and‑take in your relationships.

Where it applies

  • starting a new job
  • joining a community
  • family gatherings

Putting it to work

  • track mutual support
  • communicate expectations clearly

Questions to consider

  • What debts do you owe socially?
  • How can you repay emotional debts?

Another view

It oversimplifies complex social interactions to mere debt/credit terms.

More from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  1. The fate of the architect is the strangest of all. How often he expends his whole soul, his whole heart and passion, to produce buildings into which he himself…

    Permalink to quote #58
  2. No one would talk much in society, if he knew how often he misunderstands others.

    Permalink to quote #60
  3. One is never satisfied with a portrait of a person that one knows.

    Permalink to quote #57

Related quotes

  1. Authority is not a quality one person 'has,' in the sense that he has property or physical qualities. Authority refers to an interpersonal relation in which on…

    Erich FrommErich Fromm quote #31
  2. 'Lies are told only to convey to someone that one has no need either of him or his good opinion.'

    Theodor AdornoTheodor Adorno quote #54
  3. All the lessons of psychiatry, psychology, social work, indeed culture, have taught us over the last hundred years that it is the acceptance of differences, no…

    John Ralston SaulJohn Ralston Saul quote #67