Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes - Page 44

• I am a part of the part that at first was all, part of the darkness that gave birth to the light, that supercilious light which now disputes with Mother Night her ancient rank and space, and yet cannot succeed; no matter how it struggles, it sticks to matter and can't get free. Light flows from substance, makes it beautiful.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Beautiful, Mother, Struggle

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1941). “Goethe's Faust”

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• Man errs as long as he strives.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Life, Philosophy, Men

  Faust pt. 1 "Prolog im Himmel" (1808)

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• The world is so great and rich, and life so full of variety, that you can never lack occasions for poems.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  World, Rich, Occasions

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1921). “Goethe's Literary Essays”

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• It is so hard that one cannot really have confidence in doctors and yet cannot do without them.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Doctors, Have Confidence, Hard

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• War is in truth a disease in which the juices that serve health and maintenance are used for the sole purpose of nourishing something foreign, something at odds with nature.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  War, Odds, Purpose

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• The best benefit we derive from history is the enthusiasm it excites.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  History, Benefits, Enthusiasm

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• One is never satisfied with a portrait of persons whom one knows. That is why I have always pitied portraitists. One demands so seldom of others the impossible, but demands just that of the portraitists.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Portraits, Demand, Impossible

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• Beauty is a manifestation of secret natural laws, which otherwise would have been hidden from us forever.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Beauty, Law, Secret Love

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• When ideas fail, words come in very handy.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Sarcastic, War, Sarcasm

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• Please send me your last pair of shoes, worn out with dancing as you mentioned in your letter, so that I might have something to press against my heart.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Dance, Heart, Ballet Class

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• What I possess I would gladly retain. Change amuses the mind, yet scarcely profits.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Change, Mind, Profit

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• One can't dull a project better than by discussing it repeatedly.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Dull, Projects, Discussing

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• An angel! Nonsense! Everybody so describes his mistress; and yet I find it impossible to tell you how perfect she is, or why she is so perfect: suffice it to say she has captivated all my senses.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Angel, Perfect, Mistress

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2015). “The Sorrows of Young Werther: Top Classic of German”, p.7, 谷月社

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• Stood I, O Nature! man alone in thee, Then were it worth one's while a man to be.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Men, Thee

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Bayard Taylor (1950). “Faust, a tragedy”

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• All lyrical work must, as a whole, be perfectly intelligible, but in some particulars a little unintelligible.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Poetry, Littles, Lyrical

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

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• The force of a language does not consist of rejecting what is foreign but of swallowing it.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Doe, Swallowing, Language

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• 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. And after all, what can we call our own, except energy, strength, and will? If I could give an account of all that I owe to great predecessors and contemporaries, there would be but a small balance in my favor.

  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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• There is no trifling with nature; it is always true, grave, and severe; it is always in the light, and the faults and errors fall to our share. It defies incompetency, but reveals its secrets to the competent, the truthful, and the pure.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Nature, Fall, Errors

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• No one as ever completed their apprenticeship.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Learning, Experience, Apprenticeship

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• Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Travel, Communication, Inspiration

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• Sometimes I don't understand how another can love her, is allowed to love her, since I love her so completely myself, so intensely, so fully, grasp nothing, know nothing, have nothing but her!

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Sometimes, Knows

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• That which is eternal in Woman lifts us above.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Women, Eternity, Eternal

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• Napoleon affords us an example of the danger of elevating one's self to the absolute, and sacrificing everything to the carrying out of an idea.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Acceptance, Sacrifice, Sacrificing Everything

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• Energy will do anything that can be done in the world; and no talents, no circumstances, no opportunities will make a two-legged animal a man without it.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Animal, Opportunity, Men

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• Truth is a torch, but a huge one, and so it is only with blinking eyes what we all of us try to get past it, in actual terror of being burnt.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Truth, Eye, Past

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2013). “Delphi Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Illustrated)”, p.3526, Delphi Classics

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