Paul Ehrlich, Nobel laureate in medicine, searched systematically for a drug against syphilis. His team made hundreds of compounds and tested them one after another. His assistant Sahachiro Hata tested them methodically on infected mice. Compound number 606 worked. It was introduced in 1910 as Salvarsan. Ehrlich liked to say that success in research needs four Gs: Geld, Geduld, Geschick und Glück. Money, patience, skill and luck.
quotes
Hard Boards, Not Thick Ones
On 28 January 1919, in Munich, the sociologist Max Weber gave his lecture Politik als Beruf, politics as a vocation. It contains this sentence: Die Politik bedeutet ein starkes langsames Bohren von harten Brettern mit Leidenschaft und Augenmaß zugleich. Politics means a strong, slow drilling through hard boards, with passion and a sense of proportion at the same time. German politicians quote it often. Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier used it on 16 November 2015, when he presented the Federal Cross of Merit to two diplomats. In 2011 the writer Alexander Kluge called a book of 133 political stories Das Bohren harter Bretter, the drilling of hard boards.
In everyday speech the boards have changed. Many Germans say dicke Bretter bohren, to drill thick boards. A Protestant news site wrote in 2014 that many politicians describe their work as das Bohren dicker Bretter, and a FAZ review of Kluge’s book spoke of Webers Wort vom Bohren dicker Bretter. Weber wrote hard boards, not thick ones.
Care Before a Quick Shot
In September 2022, politicians from the opposition and from the governing coalition pressed Chancellor Olaf Scholz to send tanks to Ukraine faster. Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann of the FDP, a coalition party, asked: Auf was um Himmels willen warten wir noch? What in heaven’s name are we still waiting for? Scholz described his course as besonnen und entschieden, level-headed and decisive. On 17 February 2023 he explained his approach at the Munich Security Conference: Und bei allem Handlungsdruck, den es ohne Zweifel gibt: In dieser entscheidenden Frage gilt: Sorgfalt vor Schnellschuss, Zusammenhalt vor Solovorstellung. For all the pressure to act, which no doubt exists, this rule applies: care before a quick shot, unity before solo performances. He added that support had to be set up from the start so …, dass wir sie lange durchhalten, so that it can be kept up for a long time. By then, Germany had also agreed to deliver Western battle tanks.
Without Haste, Without Rest
Goethe’s Zahme Xenien, his tame epigrams, include a verse of five short lines:
Wie das Gestirn,
Ohne Hast,
Aber ohne Rast,
Drehe sich jeder
Um die eigne Last.
Like the star, without haste but without rest, let each one turn around his own load. In German, Hast, haste, rhymes with Rast, rest, and with Last, load.
The Zero Must Stand
Die Null muss stehen! The zero must stand, which means: keep a clean sheet. Before the 1997 UEFA Cup final against Inter Milan, Schalke 04 coach Huub Stevens said: “‘Die Null muss stehen!’ Das ist unser Wahlspruch.” The zero must stand. That is our motto. Schalke won the cup on 21 May 1997.
The phrase became Stevens’s trademark. When he returned to Schalke in December 2020, a fan’s message called it “der ewige Spruch”, the eternal saying. Stevens is Dutch, but the saying became part of German football.
How a Coming Generation Is to Live
At Christmas 1942 the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote an essay for a small circle, Nach zehn Jahren, After Ten Years. It was meant for his parents, his friend Eberhard Bethge and his resistance colleagues Hans von Dohnanyi and Hans Oster. In it he wrote: “Die letzte verantwortliche Frage ist nicht, wie ich mich heroisch aus der Affäre ziehe, sondern [wie] eine kommende Generation weiterleben soll.”
The ultimate responsible question is not how I heroically extricate myself from the affair, but how a coming generation is to go on living. Bonhoeffer called talk of heroic downfall unheroic, because it did not dare to look into the future.
The Future Needs a Past
Zukunft braucht Herkunft. The future needs origins. The philosopher Odo Marquard (1928–2015) gave this title to a book of essays in 2003. The national biography says the title became a well-known saying.
Marquard argued that people should orient themselves by customs that exist for good reasons, rather than chase what is new. He saw himself as a Berufsskeptiker, a professional skeptic.
The Board Member Who Scolds Weekend Senders
In December 2014 Wolfgang Brezina, board member for personnel at the insurer Allianz, said that managers should set an example, especially in the late hours and at weekends. He added: Ich schimpfe auch, wenn mir am Wochenende jemand eine unnötige Mail schickt. I also scold anyone who sends me an unnecessary e-mail at the weekend. On the Allianz board itself, weekend e-mail was limited to emergencies. Brezina did not want a general ban. He considered role models more important than rigid rules.
Let Us Calculate
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz hoped that disputes could one day be settled the way accountants settle a sum. In his essay De arte characteristica he wrote that two philosophers would then need no more argument than two accountants. It would be enough to take pens in hand, sit down at the abacus and say to each other: Calculemus. Let us calculate.
Our Cover Is Not Good
Germany opened the 2018 World Cup on 17 June with a 0:1 defeat against Mexico. Right after the match, the defender Mats Hummels named the fault in public: Unsere Absicherung steht nicht gut. Oft sind nur Jerome und ich hinten. Our cover is not good. Often only Jérôme Boateng and I are at the back. When seven or eight players attack, he said, the attacking force is greater than the defensive stability. He had already raised the point inside the team: Das, was ich intern oft anspreche, fruchtet anscheinend noch nicht so ganz. What I often raise internally is apparently not quite working yet. Germany lost its last group match 0:2 to South Korea and went out last in the group.