You Have No Idea, How Much Poetry

To Such Idle Talk It Might Further Be Added: That Whenever A Certain Exclusive Occupation Is Coupled With Specific Shortcomings, It Is Likewise Almost Certainly Divorced From Certain Other Shortcomings.

To The Distracting Occupations Belong Especially My Lecture Courses Which I Am Holding This Winter For The First Time, And Which Now Cost Much More Of My Time Than I Like. Meanwhile I Hope That The Second Time This Expenditure Of Time Will Be Much Less, Otherwise I Would Never Be Able To Reconcile Myself To It, Even Practical (astronomical) Work Must Give Far More Satisfaction Than If One Brings Up To B A Couple More Mediocre Heads Which Otherwise Would Have Stopped At A.

In The Last Two Months I Have Been Very Busy With My Own Mathematical Speculations, Which Have Cost Me Much Time, Without My Having Reached My Original Goal. Again And Again I Was Enticed By The Frequently Interesting Prospects From One Direction To The Other, Sometimes Even By Will-o'-the-wisps, As Is Not Rare In Mathematic Speculations.

In My Opinion Instruction Is Very Purposeless For Such Individuals Who Do No Want Merely To Collect A Mass Of Knowledge, But Are Mainly Interested In Exercising (training) Their Own Powers. One Doesn't Need To Grasp Such A One By The Hand And Lead Him To The Goal, But Only From Time To Time Give Him Suggestions, In Order That He May Reach It Himself In The Shortest Way.

To Praise It Would Amount To Praising Myself. For The Entire Content Of The Work... Coincides Almost Exactly With My Own Meditations Which Have Occupied My Mind For The Past Thirty Or Thirty-five Years.