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Artists have a double relationship towards nature: they are her master and her slave at the same time. They are her slave in so far as they must work with means of this world so as to be understood; her master in so far as they subject these means to their higher goals and make them subservient to them.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
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
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Conscience is the virtue of the observers not the agents of action.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
Once you have missed the first buttonhole, you'll never manage to button up.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
Thou tremblest before anticipated ills, and still bemoanest what thou never losest.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
What is the freedom of the most free? To do what is right!
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
It is so hard that one cannot really have confidence in doctors and yet cannot do without them.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Each animal is an end in itself.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
To create something you must be something.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
All understanding begins in wonder!
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
The dear good people don't know how long it takes to learn to read. I've been at it eighty years, and can't say yet that I've reached the goal.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
Giving is the business of the rich.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
Character is constructed amidst the tempests of the World.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Words express neither objects nor ourselves.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
While man's desires and aspirations stir he cannot choose but err.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
Mysteries are not necessarily miracles.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
Every solution of a problem is a new problem.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
A lot of people do not care about your money until nearly penniless. They also do so with time.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
Nothing is more dangerous than solitude.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The human race is a monotonous affair. Most people spend the greatest part of their time working in order to live, and what little freedom remains so fills them with fear that they seek out any and every means to be rid of it.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
There is no way to face the great advantages of another person than through love.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
What must the English and French think of the language of our philosophers when we Germans do not understand it ourselves?
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe