Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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Oh happy he who still can hope in our day to breathe the truth while plunged in seas of error! What we don't know is really what we need, and what we know is of no use to us whatever!
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Try novelties for salesman's bait, For novelty wins everyone.
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The sea is flowing ever, The land retains it never.
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Each indecision brings its own delays and days are lost lamenting over lost days... What you can do or think you can do, begin it. For boldness has magic, power, and genius in it.
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It is unpleasant to miss even the most trifling thing to which we have been accustomed.
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Look closely at those who patronize you. Half are unfeeling, half untaught.
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The greatest act of faith takes place when a man finally decides that he is not God.
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People are so constituted that everybody would rather undertake what they see others do, whether they have an aptitude for it or not.
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Es ist so gewiß als wunderbar, daß Wahrheit und Irrthum aus Einer Quelle entstehen; deßwegen man oft dem Irrthum nicht schaden darf, weil man zugleich der Wahrheit schadet.
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A reasonable man needs only to practice moderation to find happiness.
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Ich bin der Geist der stets verneint.
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Chess is the touchstone of intellect.
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The best pleasures of this world are not quite true.
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The main thing is to have a soul that loves the truth and harbours it where he finds it. And another thing: truth requires constant repetition, because error is being preached about us all the time, and not only by isolated individuals but by the masses. In the newspapers and encyclopedias, in schools and universities, everywhere error rides high and basks in the consciousness of having the majority on its side.
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To know someone here or there with whom you can feel there is understanding in spite of distances or thoughts expressed That can make life a garden.
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No one is willing to believe that adults too, like children, wander about this earth in a daze and, like children, do not know where they come from or where they are going, act as rarely as they do according to genuine motives, and are as thoroughly governed as they are by biscuits and cake and the rod.
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What one has wished for in youth, in old age one has in abundance.
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So then the year is repeating its old story again. We are come once more, thank God! to its most charming chapter. The violets and the Mayflowers are as its inscriptions or vignettes. It always makes a pleasant impression on us, when we open again at these pages of the book of life.
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I can tell you, honest friend, what to believe: believe life; it teaches better that book or orator.
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The iron hand of necessity commands, and her stern decree is supreme law, to which the gods even must submit. In deep silence rules the uncounselled sister of eternal fate. Whatever she lays upon thee, endure; perform whatever she commands.
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A useless life is an early death. [Ger., Ein unnutz Leben ist ein fruher Tod.]
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It is not enough to have knowledge; one must apply it. It is not enough to have wishes; one must also accomplish it.
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Character calls forth character.
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It is only necessary to grow old to become more charitable and even indulgent. I see no fault committed by others that I have not committed myself.