Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes - Page 27

• People are always talking about originality, but what do they mean? As soon as we are born, the world begins to work upon us, and this goes on to the end.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Mean, Talking, People

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Peter Eckermann (2014). “Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann”, p.160, Ravenio Books

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• He alone deserves liberty and life who daily must win them anew.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Winning, Liberty, Deserve

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• Self-knowledge comes from knowing other men.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Knowledge, Men, Self

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2013). “Delphi Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Illustrated)”, p.1891, Delphi Classics

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• A distracted existence leads us to no goal

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Goal, Setting Goals, Existence

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• If you inquire what people are like here, I must answer, "The same as everywhere."

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  People, Answers, Ifs

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2016). “THE SORROWS OF YOUNG WERTHER (Literary Classics Series): Historical Romance Novel”, p.5, e-artnow

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• When young, one is confident to be able to build palaces for mankind, but when the time comes one has one's hands full just to be able to remove their trash.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Hands, Able, Palaces

  Letter to Johann Kaspar Lavatar, March 06, 1780.

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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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• Know'st thou yesterday, its aim and reason? Work'st thou will today for worthier things? Then calmly wait the morrow's hidden season, And fear thou not, what hap soe'er it brings

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Fear, Work, Yesterday

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• Tis Lilith.
  Who?
  Adam's first wife is she.
  Beware the lure within her lovely tresses,
  The splendid sole adornment of her hair;
  When she succeeds therewith a youth to snare,
  Not soon again she frees him from her jesses.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Women, Hair, Wife

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2008). “Faust”, p.178, PR Seitz Bookseller

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• Superstition is rooted in a much deeper and more sensitive layer of the psyche than skepticism.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Layers, Superstitions, Sensitive

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• People are so constituted that everybody would rather undertake what they see others do, whether they have an aptitude for it or not.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  People, Aptitude, Originality

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• Our wishes are presentiments of the abilities that lie in us, harbingers of what we will be able to accomplish.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Lying, Wish, Able

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• It's true that nothing in this world makes us so necessary to others as the affection we have for them.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  World, Affection, This World

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• Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate into their own language and forthwith it is something entirely different.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Funny, Humorous, Math

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• The thinking person has the strange characteristic to like to create a fantasy in the place of the unsolved problem, a fantasy that stays with the person even when the problem has been solved and truth made its appearance.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Thinking, Strange, Fantasy

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• Patriotism ruins history.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Honesty, Patriotism, Ruins

  Conversation with Friedrich Wilhem Riemer, July 1817.

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• Water its living strength first shows, When obstacles its course oppose.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Lakes, Sea, Fishing

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Edgar Alfred BOWRING (1853). “The Poems of Goethe, Translated in the Original Metres, with a Sketch of Goethe's Life. By E. A. Bowring”, p.331

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• Nothing is more fearful than imagination without taste.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Imagination, Literature, Taste

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• Woe to falsehood! it affords no relief to the breast, like truth; it gives us no comfort, pains him who forges it, and like an arrow directed by a god flies back and wounds the archer.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Pain, Archer, Arrows

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• No two people see the world exactly alike, and different temperaments will often apply the same principle, recognized by both, differently. Even one and the same person won't always maintain the same views and judgments: earlier convictions must give way to later ones.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Two, Views, Giving

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• To the man of thought almost nothing is really ridiculous.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Men, Ridiculous, He Man

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

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• Nothing is more dangerous than solitude.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Solitude, Dangerous

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, David E. Wellbery (1988). “The Sorrows of Young Werther ; Elective Affinities ; Novella”, p.42, Princeton University Press

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• Forget not that the man who cannot enjoy his own natural gifts in silence, and find his reward in the exercise of them, will generally find himself badly off.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Exercise, Men, Silence

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• We are surrounded by abysses, but the greatest of all depths is in our own heart, and an irresistible leaning leads us there. Draw thyself from thyself!

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Heart, Temptation, Depth

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• Whatever liberates our spirit, without also giving us mastery over ourselves, is destructive.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Freedom, Giving, Mastery

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