Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

The world of empirical morality consists for the most part of nothing but ill will and envy.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

• Morality
• Envy
• Ill-Will

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Quotes to Explore

• Morality is the theory that every human act must be either right or wrong, and that 99 % of them are wrong.

  

  H. L. Mencken
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• There are a few dogmas and double standards and really regrettable exports from philosophy that have confounded the thinking of scientists on the subject of morality.

  

  Sam Harris
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• I'm not confident around compliments or being celebrated, and I'm not comfortable with the thought of envy, which some people thrive on.

  

  Rachel Weisz
  • People
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• The Holocaust changed our perception of morality not only because we discovered that morality is the only thing that can stand up to the ultimate evil, but also because it shifted the focus from society to the individual.

  

  Yair Lapid
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• Poetry, whatever the manifest content of the poem, is always a violation of the rationalism and morality of bourgeois society.

  

  Octavio Paz
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• There's always the hyena of morality at the garden gate, and the real wolf at the end of the street.

  

  D. H. Lawrence
  • Real
  • End
  • Garden

• The only time I've ever really felt envy is when I've watched people make music, which made my time living in the now-legendary Jazz Loft at 821 Sixth Avenue in New York a constant source of agony and ecstasy!

  

  Harold Feinstein
  • People
  • Time
  • Music

• Philosophy as practice does not mean its restriction to utility or applicability, that is, to what serves morality or produces serenity of soul.

  

  Karl Jaspers
  • Soul
  • Practice
  • Philosophy

• The wicked envy and hate; it is their way of admiring.

  

  Victor Hugo
  • Way
  • Hate
  • Envy

• In America, if you succeed, you don't have to apologize. In Italy, success is envied, and envy is the worst, worst, worst thing in the world. It's easy for me to say because I have had more than many others, but at the end of the day, I have never envied anyone. I wish to no one that they waste their time envying anyone else.

  

  Lapo Elkann
  • Time
  • World
  • America

• Morality is contraband in war.

  

  Mahatma Gandhi
  • War
  • Morality

• I have seen many teachers in real life, which come from the same background and morality and treat their profession like just another one rather than a noble profession.

  

  Nawazuddin Siddiqui
  • Life
  • Real
  • Same

• I like moral judgment to emerge from the reader. We are being sold a very simplistic morality by our leaders at a time when nuance and understanding are at a premium.

  

  Hari Kunzru
  • Time
  • Understanding
  • Moral

• A painter, who finds no satisfaction in mere representation, however artistic, in his longing to express his inner life, cannot but envy the ease with which music, the most non-material of the arts today, achieves this end. He naturally seeks to apply the methods of music to his own art.

  

  Wassily Kandinsky
  • Life
  • Music
  • Art

• Modern morality is all about perception.

  

  Rachel Cusk
  • Perception
  • Modern
  • Morality

• Envy blinds men and makes it impossible for them to think clearly.

  

  Malcolm X
  • Men
  • Think
  • Impossible

• I envy people who drink - at least they know what to blame everything on.

  

  Oscar Levant
  • People
  • Envy
  • Blame

• You campaigned against rich people and you got enough envy whipped up in the country and you're gonna get 'em. You're gonna stick it to those rich people. But guess what? You may not get anymore revenue. You may not get anymore economic growth. But you can say, 'I stuck it to the rich people.'

  

  Rand Paul
  • People
  • Up
  • Country

• What restrains us from killing is partly fear of punishment, partly moral scruple, and partly what may be described as a sense of humor

  

  H. L. Mencken
  • May
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• In truth, even if they have an imperfect insight into their own methods, I still slightly mistrust writers of fiction who are assured literary critics; it makes me suspect that they favour the word over the world it should describe. Such scribes fall victim too easily to the solecism of equating style with morality.

  

  Will Self
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  • Morality

• The Occupy Wall Street protests at last suggest that America's wealth gap is once again becoming an organizing political principle in the country.

  

  Jon Meacham
  • Country
  • America
  • Political

• At one time or another, almost every politician needs an honest man so badly that, like a ravenous wolf, he breaks into a sheep-fold: not to devour the ram he has stolen, however, but rather to conceal himself behind its wooly back.

  

  Friedrich Nietzsche
  • Time
  • Stolen
  • Honest Man

• I just got hooked on the radio, the voice of it all. It was my connection to metropolitan America, if you will. Sports, in particularly baseball then 'cause of its rich sediment of numbers, was one of the first things a young person could peg up with adults on - that is, you could know as much about Jimmy Fox as your father did.

  

  George Will
  • Father
  • Sports
  • Baseball

• The world of empirical morality consists for the most part of nothing but ill will and envy.

  

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  • Morality
  • Envy
  • Ill-Will