Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes - Page 36

• If a man knows where to get good advice, it is as though he could supply it himself.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Men, Advice, Knows

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2015). “Maxims and Reflections”, p.94, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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• Were the eye not of the sun, How could we behold the light? If God's might and ours were not as one, How could His work enchant our sight?

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Eye, Light, Sight

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• Viewed from the summit of reason, all life looks like a malignant disease and the world like a madhouse.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Life, Math, Looks

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• Talk well of the absent whenever you have the opportunity.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Opportunity, Absence, Wells

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• Do not, I beg you, look for anything behind phenomena. They are themselves their own lesson.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Religion, Looks, Lessons

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• You are, when all is done-just what you are.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Identity, Done

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• I treat my heart like a sick child and gratify its every fancy

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Children, Heart, Sick

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, David E. Wellbery (1988). “The Sorrows of Young Werther ; Elective Affinities ; Novella”, p.7, Princeton University Press

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• We always hope, and in all things it is better to hope than to despair.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Hope, Despair, All Things

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Cyrus Hamlin (1987). “Verse Plays and Epic”, p.107, Princeton University Press

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• I am the spirit that negates. And rightly so, for all that comes to be Deserves to perish wretchedly; 'Twere better nothing would begin. Thus everything that that your terms, sin, Destruction, evil represent— That is my proper element.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Evil, Elements, Spirit

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Walter Arnold Kaufmann (1963). “Goethe's Faust: part one and sections from part two”, Anchor

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• All of us, just because we are able to talk, also believe we are able to talk about language.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Believe, Able, Language

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• Mathematics has the completely false reputation of yielding infallible conclusions. Its infallibility is nothing but identity. Two times two is not four, but it is just two times two, and that is what we call four for short. But four is nothing new at all. And thus it goes on and on in its conclusions, except that in the higher formulas the identity fades out of sight.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Math, Two, Sight

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• People will allow their faults to be shown them; they will let themselves be punished for them; they will patiently endure many things because of them; they only become impatient when they have to lay them aside.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  People, Faults, Impatient

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1868). “Novels and Tales by Goethe”, p.141

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• One is led astray alike by sympathy and coldness, by praise and by blame

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Sympathy, Blame, Praise

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1882). “The Autobiography of Goethe: Truth and Poetry From My Own Life”, p.576, Library of Alexandria

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• The people rate strength before everything.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Strength, People, Rate

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• If we could do away with death, we wouldn't object; to do away with capital punishment will be more difficult. Were that to happen, we would reinstate it from time to time.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Punishment, Difficult, Happens

  "Wilhelm Meister's Travels". Book by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1829.

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• A great deal may be done by severity, more by love, but most by clear discernment and impartial justice.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Justice, Done, May

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Peter Eckermann (2014). “Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann”, p.132, Ravenio Books

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• A talent can be cultivated in tranquility; a character only in the rushing stream of life.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Character, Rushing, Talent

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• Is this the destiny of man? Is he only happy before he has acquired his reason or after he has lost it?

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Destiny, Men, Reason

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2016). “THE SORROWS OF YOUNG WERTHER (Literary Classics Series): Historical Romance Novel”, p.57, e-artnow

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• To know where a thing is we must have found it.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Found, Knows

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1932). “Goethe's poems and aphorisms”

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• Time flies, and what is past is done.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Past, Time Flies, Done

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• People may live as much retired from the world as they please; but sooner or later, before they are aware, they will find themselves debtor or creditor to somebody.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  People, World, May

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

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• Passions are defects or virtues in the highest power.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Passion, Virtue, Defects

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

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• It is a great error to take oneself for more than one is, or for less than one is worth.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Errors, Oneself

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2015). “Maxims and Reflections”, p.53, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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• We who didn't inherit political power nor are made to acquire riches like nothing better than that which expands and solidifies the power of the spirit.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Political, Riches, Spirit

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• For I have been a man, and that means to have been a fighter.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Mean, Men, Fighter

  "West-östlicher Diwan". Buch des Paradies, 1819.

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