Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes - Page 25

• The art of governing is a great metier, requiring the whole man, and it is therefore not well for a ruler to have too strong tendencies for other affairs.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Strong, Art, Men

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Peter Eckermann, Frédéric Jacob Soret (1850). “Conversations of Goethe with Eckermann and Soret”, p.343

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• This being busied with thoughts of immortality is for the noble classes and especially for women with nothing to do. A solid person, though, someone who already intends to be something worthy here, and who therefore has to strive daily, has to struggle and work, gives the world to come a rest.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Struggle, Class, Giving

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• The threshold is the place of expectation.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Expectations, Threshold

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1855). “Wilhelm Meister's apprenticeship: A novel from the German. Transl. by R. Dillon Boylan. Complete in 1 vol”, p.464

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• Superstition is the poetry of life. It is inherent in man's nature; and when we think it is wholly eradicated, it takes refuge in the strangest holes and corners, whence it peeps out all at once, as soon as it can do it with safety.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Men, Thinking, Safety

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• Hatred is active displeasure, envy passive. We need not wonder that envy turns to soon to hatred.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Envy, Hatred, Needs

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2015). “Maxims and Reflections”, p.78, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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• True works of art contain their own theory and give us the measurement according to which we should judge them.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Art, Giving, Judging

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• An absent friend gives us friendly company when we are well assured of his happiness.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Happiness, Giving, Friendly

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• But who will dare to speak the truth out clear? The few who anything of truth have learned, And foolishly did not keep truth concealed, Their thoughts and visions to the common herd revealed, Since time began we've crucified and burned

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Vision, Common, Speak

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, John R. Williams (1999). “Faust: The First Part of the Tragedy ; with the Unpublished Scenarios for the Walpurgis Night and the Urfaust”, p.167, Wordsworth Editions

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• Wanted: A dog that neither barks nor bites, eats broken glass and shits diamonds.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Dog, Glasses, Broken

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• Some books seem to have been written, not to teach us anything, but to let us know that the author has known something.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Book, Artistic, Teach

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2013). “Delphi Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Illustrated)”, p.3567, Delphi Classics

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• There is no crime of which I do not deem myself capable.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Crime, Capable

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• Music, in the best sense, does not require novelty; nay, the older it is, and the more we are accustomed to it, the greater its effect.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Music, Doe, Novelty

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• We love a girl for very different qualities than understanding. We love her for her beauty, her youth, her mirth, her confidingness, her character, with its faults, caprices and God knows what other inexpressible charms; but we do not love her understanding.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Girl, Character, Understanding

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• Once I blazed across the sky, Leaving trails of flame; I fell to earth, and here I lie - Who'll help me up again? -A Shooting Star

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Stars, Lying, Flames

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• All is born of water; all is sustained by water.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Nature, Travel, Water

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• Action has magic, grace and power in it.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Grace, Magic, Acting

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• Nothing is so atrocious as fancy without taste.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Fancy, Taste

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1853). “Goethe's Opinions on the World, Mankind, Literature, Science, and Art”, p.76

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• To make an epoch in the world, two conditions are manifestly essential-a good head and a great inheritance.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Greatness, Two, Essentials

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• I have always paid attention to the merits of my enemies, and found it an advantage.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Enemy, Attention, Merit

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2015). “Maxims and Reflections”, p.136, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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• What am I then...? Everything that I have seen, heard, and observed I have collected and exploited. My works have been nourished by countless different individuals, by innocent and wise ones, people of intelligence and dunces. Childhood, maturity and old age all have brought me their thoughts....their perspectives on life. I have often reaped what others have sowed. My work is the work of a collective being that bears the name Goethe.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Wise, Maturity, Names

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• One must be something to be able to do something.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Able, Human Condition

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• One never goes so far as when one doesn't know where one is going.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Life, Creativity, Open Minded

  Letter to Carl Friedrich Zelter, December 03, 1812.

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• Religion is not in want of art; it rests on its own majesty.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Art, Religion, Want

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1853). “Goethe's Opinions on the World, Mankind, Literature, Science, and Art”, p.76

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• We are pantheists when we study nature, polytheists when we write poetry, monotheists in our morality.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Religious, Writing, Morality

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• Nature has neither kernel Nor shell

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Shells, Statistics, Kernel

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1957). “Poems of Goethe: a sequel to Goethe, the lyrist”

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