The main season for nuts and nutcrackers (Christmas) is now over, but perhaps we should keep the nutcracker out all year to remind us of how insignificant and inefficient we are besides, for example, the closed persistence of a small hazelnut. Was it not Goethe no doubt gloomily contemplating a whole basket of unopened festive nuts who remarked, »God gives us the nuts, but he doesn't open them for us....«. Indeed, the great man of letters obviously had no respect for his own teeth, since he said in the original German:»Gott gibt uns die Nuesse, aber er beisst sie nicht auf....«!!
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