Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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Legislators and revolutionaries who promise both equality and liberty are visionaries and charlatans.
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The beginning of faith is the beginning of fruitfulness; but the beginning of unbelief, however glittering, is empty.
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The person who in shaky times also wavers only increases the evil, but the person of firm decision fashions the universe.
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Time flies, and what is past is done.
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Truth is a torch, but a terrific one; therefore we all try to reach it with closed eyes, lest we should be scorched.
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Our foibles are really what make us lovable.
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Too rigid scruples are concealed pride.
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Only the heart without a stain knows ease.
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It is working within limits that the craftsman reveals himself.
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We can really respect a man only if he doesn't always look out for himself.
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Faith is like private capital, stored in one's own house. It is like a public savings bank or loan office, from which individuals receive assistance in their days of need; but here the creditor quietly takes his interest for himself.
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The whole history of the Christian Church is a mixture of errors and violence.
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Character develops itself in the stream of life.
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The flowers of life are but visionary. How many pass away and leave no trace behind! How few yield any fruit,--and the fruit itself, how rarely does it ripen! And yet there are flowers enough; and is it not strange, my friend, that we should suffer the little that does really ripen to rot, decay, and perish unenjoyed?
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Ah! my poor brain is racked and crazed, My spirit and senses amazed!
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Art rests on a kind of religious sense, on a deep, steadfast earnestness; and on this account it unites so readily with religion.
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The best way to understand a painting is by drawing it.
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Great endowments often announce themselves in youth in the form of singularity and awkwardness.
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Tomorrow sees undone, what happens not to-day; Still forward press, nor never tire! The possible, with steadfast trust, Resolve should be by the forelock grasp. Then she will ne'er let go her clasp, And labors on, because she must.
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I have never looked at foreign countries or gone there but with the purpose of getting to know the general human qualities that are spread all over the earth in very different forms, and then to find these qualities again in my own country and to recognize and to further them.
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It is better to be doing the most insignificant thing than to reckon even a half-hour insignificant.
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My counsel is, to force nothing, and rather to trifle and sleep away all unproductive days and hours, than on such days to compose something that will afterwards give no pleasure.
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Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt, weiss nichts von seiner eigenen.He who is ignorant of foreign languages, knows not his own.
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Nothing is more odious than the majority, for it consists of a few powerful leaders, a certain number of accommodating scoundrels and submissive weaklings, and a mass of men who trot after them without thinking, or knowing their own minds.