"In like manner, every translator should consider that he labours as a mediator of this universal intellectual commerce, and makes it his affair to forward the traffic. Whatever one may say about the shortcomings of translation, it nonetheless remains one of the most important and most worthy activities in the business of this world.

The Koran says: 'God has given each people a prophet in its own tongue.' Every translator is thus a prophet in the midst of his own people"

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)