In the scene Nacht, Night, at the start of Goethe’s Faust, Faust speaks two lines that Germans still quote: Was du ererbt von deinen Vätern hast, / Erwirb es, um es zu besitzen. What you have inherited from your fathers, earn it in order to possess it. The next line reads: Was man nicht nützt, ist eine schwere Last. What one does not use is a heavy burden.