Erstens kommt es anders, und zweitens als man denkt. First, it turns out differently, and second, than you think. Duden’s dictionary of famous quotations does not credit the saying to Wilhelm Busch. It treats it as a humorous saying, closely related to a real line from Busch’s Plisch und Plum of 1882: Aber hier, wie überhaupt, kommt es anders, als man glaubt. (But here, as everywhere, it turns out differently than one believes.)
quotes
Articulated, Not Heaped
In the Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant has a chapter on the architectonic of pure reason. There he writes: Ich verstehe unter einer Architektonik die Kunst der Systeme. (By an architectonic I understand the art of systems.) Kant describes a whole built from an idea: Das Ganze ist also gegliedert (articulatio) und nicht gehäuft (coacervatio). (The whole is therefore articulated and not heaped up.) And he adds: Die Idee bedarf zur Ausführung ein Schema, the idea needs a schema for its execution.
An Empire for His Descendants
On 25 December 1887, Werner von Siemens wrote a letter to his brother Carl. The Siemens Historical Institute calls it the most important of his many letters. Siemens wrote that he saw the business only secondarily as a financial asset. For him it was ein Reich welches ich gegründet habe, an empire that he had founded. He wanted to hand it on undiminished to his descendants, so that they could continue to build in it. As early as 1863, he had written to Carl about founding eine dauernde Firma, a lasting firm.
Luther’s Apple Tree
Wenn ich wüsste, dass morgen die Welt unterginge, würde ich heute noch ein Apfelbäumchen pflanzen. If I knew that the world would end tomorrow, I would still plant a little apple tree today. The saying is attributed to Martin Luther, but it is not found in his writings or in his table talk. Its first documented appearance is a letter of 5 October 1944 from Karl Lotz, a pastor in Hersfeld, to friends in the Confessing Church. Lotz introduced it as a word of Luther. The theologian Martin Schloemann traced its history in a book published in 1994. The saying spread during the war and remained popular through the years of reconstruction.
Goethe on Double-Entry Bookkeeping
In the first book of Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, published in 1795 and 1796, the young merchant Werner praises the account book. Welche Vorteile gewährt die doppelte Buchhaltung dem Kaufmanne! Es ist eine der schönsten Erfindungen des menschlichen Geistes. What advantages double-entry bookkeeping gives the merchant! It is one of the finest inventions of the human mind. Werner adds that every good householder should use it in his own household. Wilhelm answers with irony. People busy with Addieren und Bilanzieren, adding and balancing, forget das eigentliche Fazit des Lebens, the real sum of life.
Whoever Binds Himself Forever
Drum prüfe, wer sich ewig bindet, / Ob sich das Herz zum Herzen findet! / Der Wahn ist kurz, die Reu ist lang. So whoever binds himself forever should test whether heart finds heart. The illusion is short, the regret is long. The lines come from Friedrich Schiller’s Das Lied von der Glocke, The Song of the Bell, first printed in the Musen-Almanach for the year 1800. In the poem they are about marriage. Germans quote the first line for any commitment that is meant to last, such as a partnership, a long contract or a large purchase.
Better Not to Govern
Shortly before midnight on 19 November 2017, the FDP declared the exploratory talks for a Jamaica coalition with the CDU, the CSU and the Greens a failure. The party leader, Christian Lindner, said the four partners had not built a Vertrauensbasis, a basis of trust. He said the FDP had made many offers of compromise. But after weeks of talks there was still ein Papier mit zahllosen Widersprüchen, offenen Fragen und Zielkonflikten, a paper with countless contradictions, open questions and conflicting goals. Where agreements did exist, they were erkauft mit viel Geld der Bürger oder mit Formelkompromissen, bought with a lot of the citizens’ money or with formula compromises. A Formelkompromiss is a form of words that covers a disagreement without settling it. Then Lindner said: Es ist besser, nicht zu regieren, als falsch zu regieren. It is better not to govern than to govern wrongly.
The Honest Broker
On 19 February 1878, Otto von Bismarck spoke in the Reichstag about the crisis in the Balkans. He described the part he wanted Germany to play in settling it. He did not want Germany to den Schiedsrichter spielen, to play the arbiter, and say So soll es sein, this is how it shall be, with the power of the German Reich behind it. He saw the role as more modest, and he took an example from ordinary life. It would be mehr die eines ehrlichen Maklers, der das Geschäft wirklich zu Stande bringen will, more that of an honest broker who really wants to bring the business about. Four months later, the great powers met in Berlin under his chairmanship.
The phrase is often quoted in a smoother form: Ich will nichts mehr als der ehrliche Makler zwischen uneinigen Klienten sein, der das Geschäft zustande bringt. I want nothing more than to be the honest broker between clients who disagree, who brings the business about. This form is usually placed at the Congress of Berlin, and it has no clear source. The speech as printed in 1878 uses the wording above.
Without Anger or Bias
On 28 January 1919, Max Weber gave his lecture Politik als Beruf, Politics as a Vocation, in Munich. In it he described the true civil servant. The official should not engage in politics. He should administer, and above all he should be impartial. Sine ira et studio, „ohne Zorn und Eingenommenheit“ soll er seines Amtes walten. He should carry out his office without anger and without bias. The Latin phrase comes from the opening of the Annals of Tacitus. Weber then named what belongs to the politician instead: Parteinahme, Kampf, Leidenschaft. Taking sides, struggle, passion.
Make the Opponent Angry
Around 1830, Arthur Schopenhauer began a manuscript on the tricks people use to win an argument. It was published after his death, in 1864, and is known as Eristische Dialektik or Die Kunst, Recht zu behalten, The Art of Being Right. Trick number 8 reads: Den Gegner zum Zorn reizen: denn im Zorn ist er außer Stand, richtig zu urteilen und seinen Vorteil wahrzunehmen. Make your opponent angry, because in anger he cannot judge correctly or protect his own interests. Schopenhauer explains how it is done. Man bringt ihn in Zorn dadurch, daß man unverhohlen ihm Unrecht tut und schikaniert und überhaupt unverschämt ist. You treat him unfairly in the open, you harass him, and you are generally insolent. Trick number 27 also uses anger. If the opponent suddenly becomes angry at an argument, press that argument hard. The anger suggests that you have touched the weak side of his thinking.