Quote by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
No one is willing to believe that adults too, like children, wander about this earth in a daze and, like children, do not know where they come from or where they are going, act as rarely as they do according to genuine motives, and are as thoroughly governed as they are by biscuits and cake and the rod.
Summary
This quote by Friedrich Nietzsche suggests that adults are similar to children in their state of confusion and lack of understanding about the purpose or direction of their lives. It implies that adults, like children, may often act not based on genuine motives but rather on instinctual desires and external influences, such as food and punishment. The quote highlights the idea that despite the perception of maturity in adults, they too are often governed by primal instincts and remain lost in the complexity of the world.