Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes - Page 57

• By the artist's seizing any one object from nature, that object no longer is part of nature. One can go so far as to say that theartist creates the object in that very moment by emphasizing its significant, characteristic, and interesting aspects or, rather, by adding the higher values.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Nature, Artist, Interesting

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• Old age is never honored among us, but only indulged, as childhood is; and old men lose one of the most precious rights of man,--that of being judged by their peers.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Men, Rights, Childhood

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• The one who acts is always without conscience; nobody has a conscience but the contemplative person.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Action, Contemplation, Contemplative

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• Time itself is an element.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Elements

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1853). “Goethe's Opinions on the World, Mankind, Literature, Science, and Art”, p.113

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• Judge a man's character by what he finds ridiculous.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Character, Men, Judging

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• One of the most striking signs of the decay of art is the intermixing of different genres.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Art, Different, Decay

  Introduction to "Die Propyläen" journal, 1798.

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• Method will teach you to win time.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Winning, Order, Method

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• Here too it’s masquerade, I find: As everywhere, the dance of mind. I grasped a lovely masked procession, And caught things from a horror show… I’d gladly settle for a false impression, If it would last a little longer, though.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Mind, Lovely, Littles

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• In all times it is only individuals that have advanced science, not the age.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Science, Men, Age

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• The worst is that the very hardest thinking will not bring thoughts. They must come like good children of God and cry, "Here we are." You expend effort and energy thinking hard. Then, after you have given up, they come sauntering in with their hands in their pockets. If the effort had not been made to open the door, however, who knows when they could have come.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Children, Thinking, Hands

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• In every artist there is a touch of audacity without which no talent is conceivable.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Artist, Audacity, Talent

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• I make presents to the mother but think of the daughter.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Daughter, Mother, Men

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• The brilliant passes, like the dew at morn; The true endures, for ages yet unborn.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Truth, Age, Dew

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1984). “Faust”

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• What makes people happy is activity; changing evil itself into good by power, working in a God like manner.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Happiness, People, Evil

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• Rash combat oft immortalizes man; if he should fall, he is renowned in song; but after-ages reckon not the ceaseless tears which the forsaken woman sheds. Poets tell us not of the many nights consumed in weeping, or of the dreary days wherein her anguished soul vainly yearns to call her loved one back.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Song, Fall, Night

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• Give shape, artist! don't talk!
  Your poem be but a breath.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Art, Giving, Poetry

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• He who knows no foreign languages knows nothing of his own.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Inspiration, Learning, Knowing

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2012). “The Goethe Treasury: Selected Prose and Poetry”, p.293, Courier Corporation

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• At the end of life thoughts hitherto impossible come to the collected mind, like good spirits which let themselves down from the shining heights of the past.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Past, Shining, Mind

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• Individuality of expression is the beginning and end of all art.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Art, Work, New Beginnings

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (19??). “Gleams From..: Being Passages Selected and Translated from the Prose Writings of Goethe and from His Converstaions with Eckermann”

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• We amuse ourselves painting our prison-walls with bright figures and brilliant landscapes.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Wall, Landscape, Brilliant

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2016). “THE SORROWS OF YOUNG WERTHER (Literary Classics Series): Historical Romance Novel”, p.7, e-artnow

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• The fate of the architect is the strangest of all. How often he expends his whole soul, his whole heart and passion, to produce buildings into which he himself may never enter.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Passion, Heart, Fate

  Elective Affinities bk. 2, ch. 3 (1808)

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• The passions are like those demons with which Afrasahiab sailed down the Orus. Our only safety consists in keeping them asleep. If they we are lost.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Passion, Safety, Demon

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• Man is a simple being, and however rich, varied, and unfathomable he may be, the cycle of his situations is soon run through.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Running, Simple, Men

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Peter Eckermann (2014). “Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann”, p.158, Ravenio Books

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• Talent is nurtured in solitude; character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.
  [Ger., Es bildet ein talent sich in der Stille,
  Sich ein Charakter in dem Strom der Welt.]

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Character, Solitude, World

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• It is better to do the smallest thing in the world than to hold half an hour to be too small a thing.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Half, World, Hours

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1963). “Goethe's world view: presented in his reflections and maxims”

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