Alice in InfoLand

“I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or dehumanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749–1832, German poet, dramatist, novelist, philosopher and scientist.

Lizanell Boman asked me “Was this not Hiam Ginott? It is only one word off from his quite often quoted version…” so I did some digging.
Haim G. Ginott (1922-1973) American teacher, child psychologist and psychotherapist. In Teacher and child: A book for parents and teachers, (Collier, 1995), Ginott wrote: ““I’ve come to the frightening conclusioin that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It’s my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or de-humanized.”

Goethe is an icon of Western civilization and culture.
Methinks Ginott should have credited the original author of those phrases.