GUIDO BOGNOLO
Scientific advisory board of H&PC Today – Household and Personal Care Today (TKS Publisher)

To me the most important contribution to humanity of the great poets is their capability to capture universal truths in a few, simple, yet piercing sentences.  For example I am fascinated by the dialogue between Dr. Faustus and Mephistopheles that Goethe beautifully expressed in its masterpiece, the DR. FAUSTUS:

DR. FAUSTUS: Nun gut, wer bist du denn? (Well, all right, who are you then?)

MEPHISTOPHELES: (Ich bin) ein Teil von jener Kraft, die stets das Böse will und stets das Gute  

schafft ((I am) Part of that power which would the Evil ever do, and ever does the Good) (1)

I anticipate a very legitimate question that may rise at this point: what has this to do with surfactants? Well, just imagine that Dr. Faustus is a surfactants producer or a formulator, and that Mephistopheles is a regulator, and voila, les jeux sont faits. It fits perfectly, does it not? To an outside observer regulators are there to create evil, yet the end result is the good of higher human and environmental safety.

Thes ...