Wenn man keine Ahnung hat, einfach mal die Fresse halten. If you have no idea, just shut your trap. The sentence is crude, and it is often quoted. It is attributed to the comedian Dieter Nuhr. He tried to register it as a trademark, but this failed at the Higher Regional Court of Stuttgart in January 2023. A similar line had already been spoken in 1974, in the WDR sitcom Ein Herz und eine Seele: Wenn man keine Ahnung hat, dann hält man bescheiden die Schnauze. If you have no idea, you modestly keep your mouth shut.
quotes
Called Master, Even Doctor
The first scene of Goethe’s Faust is set at night, with a scholar alone in his study. Habe nun, ach! Philosophie, / Juristerei und Medizin, / Und leider auch Theologie … He has studied philosophy, law, medicine and, unfortunately, theology too. Yet he says: Und bin so klug als wie zuvor. And I am no wiser than before. Heiße Magister, heiße Doktor gar. I am called Master, even Doctor. He sees that we can know nothing. He is cleverer, he says, than all the fools, Doktoren, Magister, Schreiber und Pfaffen, doctors, masters, clerks and priests.
No One Has the Right to Obey
Niemand hat das Recht zu gehorchen. No one has the right to obey. The sentence is known as graffiti. Kein Mensch hat das Recht zu gehorchen stands on the Mussolini relief in Bolzano. Both are shortened. On 9 November 1964 Hannah Arendt spoke with the journalist Joachim Fest in a radio interview. They discussed Adolf Eichmann’s claim that he had lived by Kant’s moral precepts. Her words were: Kein Mensch hat bei Kant das Recht zu gehorchen. In Kant, no human being has the right to obey.
Here I Am Human
In the scene Vor dem Tor (Outside the Town Gate) in Goethe’s Faust, the people of the town walk out into the countryside on Easter Sunday. Faust watches them come aus Handwerks- und Gewerbesbanden, out of the bonds of craft and trade, and aus dem Druck von Giebeln und Dächern, out of the pressure of gables and roofs. Faust, the learned doctor, says: Hier ist des Volkes wahrer Himmel, / Zufrieden jauchzet groß und klein: / Hier bin ich Mensch, hier darf ich’s sein! Here is the people’s true heaven. High and low cheer, content. Here I am human, here I may be.
With Respect, Mr. President
On 18 October 1984 the vice president of the Bundestag, Richard Stücklen, excluded the Green member Joschka Fischer from the session. Fischer said to him: Mit Verlaub, Herr Präsident, Sie sind ein Arschloch! With respect, Mr. President, you are an asshole. Stücklen excluded him for two sitting days. Even as an insult, it keeps every element of formal address: the formula of respect, the title and Sie.
Work That Stands Up to Every Test
The company book Fünfzig Jahre Bosch 1886–1936, Fifty Years of Bosch, opens with sayings of its founder, Robert Bosch. One reads: “Es war mir immer ein unerträglicher Gedanke, es könne jemand bei Prüfung eines meiner Erzeugnisse nachweisen, daß ich irgendwie Minderwertiges leiste.” It was always an unbearable thought to me that someone testing one of my products could prove that I deliver anything inferior. “Deshalb habe ich stets versucht, nur Arbeit hinauszugeben, die jeder sachlichen Prüfung standhielt, also sozusagen vom Guten das Beste war.” I have therefore always tried to send out only work that would stand up to every objective examination, that is, so to speak, the best of the good.
Rather Lose Money Than Trust
“Ich möchte lieber Geld verlieren als Vertrauen.” I would rather lose money than trust. The sentence is Robert Bosch’s, the founder of the Bosch company. A biography records that he repeated it emphatically in 1919. The magazine of the Hans Böckler Foundation called it perhaps his most famous sentence.
The Chatter of Yesterday
Was kümmert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern? What do I care about my chatter of yesterday? Germans often attribute this sentence to Konrad Adenauer. It cannot be found in his writings or speeches. It first appears in print in 1969. What Adenauer did say, in December 1949, was milder. He was criticized at a meeting of his party’s parliamentary group for changing his position. He answered: “Aber meine Herren, es kann mich doch niemand daran hindern, jeden Tag klüger zu werden.” But gentlemen, nobody can stop me from getting wiser every day.
Only the Specialist’s Work Lasts
On 7 November 1917, Max Weber gave his lecture Wissenschaft als Beruf, Science as a Vocation, in a Munich bookshop. Science, he said, had entered a stage of specialization. Work that reaches into a neighboring field carries a resigned awareness. At best it gives the specialist useful questions, but the work itself must remain highly imperfect. Nur durch strenge Spezialisierung kann der wissenschaftliche Arbeiter tatsächlich das Vollgefühl, einmal und vielleicht nie wieder im Leben, sich zu eigen machen: hier habe ich etwas geleistet, was dauern wird. Only through strict specialization can the scholar have, once and perhaps never again, the full feeling that he has done something that will last. Eine wirklich endgültige und tüchtige Leistung ist heute stets: eine spezialistische Leistung. A truly final and sound achievement today is always a specialist’s achievement.
General Education First
Wilhelm von Humboldt, who reformed Prussian education, wrote to the king that certain knowledge must be general to all. Jeder ist offenbar nur dann ein guter Handwerker, Kaufmann, Soldat und Geschäftsmann, wenn er an sich und ohne Hinsicht auf seinen besonderen Beruf ein guter, anständiger, seinem Stande nach aufgeklärter Mensch und Bürger ist. Everyone is clearly a good craftsman, merchant, soldier or businessman only if he is, in himself and without regard to his particular occupation, a good, decent person and citizen, enlightened as befits his station. If school gives him this, Humboldt went on, he will later acquire the special skill of his occupation easily. He will also remain free to move from one occupation to another.
In Humboldt’s plan, the special field comes after a broad base. It does not replace it.