Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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Of the truly creative no one is ever master; it must be left to go its own way.
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The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.
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Writing is busy idleness.
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A judge who cannot punish, in the end associates themselves with the criminal.
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It is always a sign of an unproductive time when it concerns itself with petty and technical aspects [in philology], and likewiseit is a sign of an unproductive person to pursue such trifles.
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Talk well of the absent whenever you have the opportunity.
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Lose the day loitering, 'twill be the same story To-morrow, and the next more dilatory, For indecision brings its own delays, And days are lost lamenting o'er lost days. Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute! What you can do, or think you can, begin it! Only engage, and then the mind grows heated; Begin it, and the work will be completed.
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Chess is the touchstone of intellect.
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Love and desire are the spirit's wings to great deeds.
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Beauty is a primeval phenomenon, which itself never makes its appearance, but the reflection of which is visible in a thousand different utterances of the creative mind, and is as various as nature herself.
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Try novelties for salesman's bait, For novelty wins everyone.
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Was glänzt, ist für den Augenblick geboren;das Echte bleibt der Nachwelt unverloren.
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Hope is the second soul of the unhappy.
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Never by reflection, but only by doing is self- knowledge possible to one.
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It is unpleasant to miss even the most trifling thing to which we have been accustomed.
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One is led astray alike by sympathy and coldness, by praise and by blame.
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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.
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What's it to you if I love you?
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Who is the wisest man? He who neither knows or wishes for anything else than what happens.
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Where the light is brightest, the shadows are deepest.
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If you wish to advance into the infinite, explore the finite in all directions.
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This is why we may say that those who parade piety as a purpose and an aim mostly turn into hypocrites
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Smoothly and lightly the golden seed by the furrow is covered.
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Every form correctly seen is beautiful.