Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes - Page 26

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

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Able, Human Condition

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• Oh happy he who still can hope in our day to breathe the truth while plunged in seas of error! What we don't know is really what we need, and what we know is of no use to us whatever!

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Sea, Errors, Needs

  Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1985). “Faust/Bilingual”, Bantam Classics

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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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• How shall we plan, that all be fresh and new--
  Important matter yet attractive too?
  [Ger., Wie machen wir's, dass alles frisch und neu
  Und mit Bedeutung auch gefallig sei?]

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Important, Mit, Matter

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• A rainbow which lasts for a quarter of an hour is looked at no longer.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Rainbow, Lasts, Hours

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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.

  12 Copy quote

• Man is not born to solve the problem of the universe, but to find out what he has to do; and to restrain himself within the limits of his comprehension.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Science, Men, Limits

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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! We live in her midst and know her not. She is incessantly speaking to us, but betrays not her secret. We constantly act upon her, and yet have no power over her. Variant: NATURE! We are surrounded and embraced by her: powerless to separate ourselves from her, and powerless to penetrate beyond her.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Nature, Secret, Midst

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• Only the heart without a stain knows ease.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Heart, Ease, Stains

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• You can’t, if you can’t feel it, if it never Rises from the soul, and sways The heart of every single hearer, With deepest power, in simple ways. You’ll sit forever, gluing things together, Cooking up a stew from other’s scraps, Blowing on a miserable fire, Made from your heap of dying ash. Let apes and children praise your art, If their admiration’s to your taste, But you’ll never speak from heart to heart, Unless it rises up from your heart’s space.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Art, Children, Simple

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• What do people mean when they talk about unhappiness? It is not so much unhappiness as impatience that from time to time possesses men, and then they choose to call themselves miserable.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Mean, Men, People

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, John Stuart Blackie (1883). “The Wisdom of Goethe”, Edinburgh, W. Blackwood

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• No one has ever learned fully to know themselves.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Learning, Literature, Knows

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• Certain books seem to be written, not that we might learn from them, but in order that we might see how much the author knows.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Book, Order, Might

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• However often we turn to it [the Koran] at first disgusting us each time afresh, it soon attracts, astounds, and in the end enforces our reverence. . . . Its style, in accordance with its contents and aim is stern, grand, terrible - ever and anon truly sublime - Thus this book will go on exercising through all ages a most potent influence.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Time, Book, Exercise

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• Where is the man who has the strength to be true, and to show himself as he is?

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Strength, Truth, Honesty

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Peter Eckermann (2014). “Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann”, p.71, Ravenio Books

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• We can always redeem the man who aspires and strives.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Perseverance, Men, Strive

  19 Copy quote

• To me the external existence of my soul is proved from my idea of activity. If I work incessantly until my death, nature will give me another form of existence when the present can no longer sustain my spirit.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Ideas, Giving, Soul

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• Be above it! Make the world serve your purpose, but do not serve it.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Purpose, Literature, World

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• Children, like dogs, have so sharp and fine a scent that they detect and hunt out everything--the bad before all the rest. They also know well enough how this or that friend stands with their parents; and as they practice no dissimulation whatever, they serve as excellent barometers by which to observe the degree of favor or disfavor at which we stand with their parents.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Dog, Children, Practice

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Peter Eckermann (2014). “Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann”, p.435, Ravenio Books

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• Hope is the second soul of the unhappy.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Hope, Soul, Unhappy

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2013). “Delphi Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Illustrated)”, p.3536, Delphi Classics

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• Who are you then?" "I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Evil, Faust

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• Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one's thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Life, Motivational, Thinking

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• If children grew up according to early indications, we should have nothing but geniuses.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Children, Should Have, Childhood

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, John Oxenford (2013). “The Auto-Biography of Goethe: Truth and Poetry: From My Own Life”, p.54, Cambridge University Press

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• Letters are among the most significant memorial a person can leave behind them.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Memorial, Literature, Letters

  19 Copy quote

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