Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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A person is never happy till their vague strivings has itself marked out its proper limitations.
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In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.
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Beauty is a manifestation of secret natural laws, which otherwise would have been hidden from us forever.
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Ah, how often I've cursed those foolish pages,That showed my youthful sufferings to everyone!If Werther had been my brother, and I'd killed him,His sad ghost could hardly have persecuted me more.
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The angles even Draw strength from gazing on its glance, Though none its meaning fathom may; The world's unwither'd countenance Is bright as at creation's day.
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Zwey Seelen wohnen, ach! in meiner Brust.
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Individuality of expression is the beginning and end of all art.
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How to please the public - that's the test, But nowadays I find I'm in a fix; I know they're not accustomed to the best, But they've all read so much they know the tricks. How can we give then something fresh and new That's serious, but entertaining too?
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Belief is not the beginning of knowledge - it is the end.
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Man... knows only when he is satisfied and when he suffers, and only his sufferings and his satisfactions instruct him concerning himself, teach him what to seek and what to avoid. For the rest, man is a confused creature; he knows not whence he comes or whither he goes, he knows little of the world, and above all, he knows little of himself.
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There is no outward sign of true courtesy that does not rest on a deep moral foundation.
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Yes, my love, who soever lives, loses, . . . but he also wins.
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A thinking man's greatest happiness is to have fathomed what can be fathomed and to revere in silence what cannot be fathomed.
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Each has his own happiness in his hands, as the artist handles the rude clay he seeks to reshape it into a figure; yet it is the same with this art as with all others: only the capacity for it is innate; the art itself must be learned and painstakingly practiced.
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Hypotheses are only the pieces of scaffolding which are erected round a building during the course of construction, and which are taken away as soon as the edifice is completed.
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The most congenial social occasions are those ruled by cheerful deference of each for all.
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The nude is the perfect expression of freedom. Freedom to be.
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Those who make use of devotion as a means and end generally are hypocrites.
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I curse all negative purism that tells me not to use a word from another language that either expresses something that my own language cannot or does that in a more delicate manner.
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Nichts ist höher schätzen als der Werth des Tages.
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Nature! We live in her midst and know her not. She is incessantly speaking to us, but betrays not her secret. We constantly act upon her, and yet have no power over her. Variant: NATURE! We are surrounded and embraced by her: powerless to separate ourselves from her, and powerless to penetrate beyond her.
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The art of governing is a great metier, requiring the whole man, and it is therefore not well for a ruler to have too strong tendencies for other affairs.
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Plants and flowers of the commonest kind can form a pleasing diary, because nothing which calls back to us the remembrance of a happy moment can be insignificant.
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He who is firm in will molds the world to himself. [Ger., Aber wer fest auf dem Sinne beharrt, der bildet die Welt sich.]