Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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A great deal may be done by severity, more by love, but most by clear discernment and impartial justice.
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Wanted: A dog that neither barks nor bites, eats broken glass and shits diamonds.
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Since Time is not a person we can overtake when he is gone, let us honor him with mirth and cheerfulness of heart while he is passing.
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If children grew up according to early indications, we should have nothing but geniuses.
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Some books seem to have been written, not to teach us anything, but to let us know that the author has known something.
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He who wishes to exert a useful influence must be careful to insult nothing. Let him not be troubled by what seems absurd, but concentrate his energies to the creation of what is good. He must not demolish, but build. He must raise temples where mankind may come and partake of the purest pleasure.
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If you start to think of your physical and moral condition, you usually find that you are sick.
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Let your trouble be Light will follow dark Though the heaven falls You may hear the lark.
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There is no surer method of evading the world than by following Art, and no surer method of linking oneself to it than by Art.
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It seems to never occur to fools that merit and good fortune are closely united.
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Enjoy what thou has inherited from thy sires if thou wouldn't really possess it. What we employ and use is never an oppressive burden; what the moment brings forth, that only can it profit by.
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Beware of dissipating your powers; strive constantly to concentrate them.
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What right those who govern have to govern they don't question, they just govern. Whether the people have a right to depose them that doesn't concern them. All they are concerned with is that the people will not be tempted to depose them.
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Confronted by outstanding merit, there is no way of saving one's ego except by love.
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Without haste! without rest! Bind the motto to thy breast! Bear it with thee as a spell; Storm or sunshine, guard it well.
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We don't get to know people when they come to us; we must go to them to find out what they are like.
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Forget not that the man who cannot enjoy his own natural gifts in silence, and find his reward in the exercise of them, will generally find himself badly off.
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Freedom consists not in refusing to recognize anything above us, but in respecting something which is above us; for by respecting it, we raise ourselves to it, and, by our very acknowledgment, prove that we bear within ourselves what is higher, and are worthy to be on a level with it.
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Quite often, as life goes on, when we feel completely secure as we go on our way, we suddenly notice that we are trapped in error, that we have allowed ourselves to be taken in by individuals, by objects, have dreamt up an affinity with them which immediately vanishes before our waking eye; and yet we cannot tear ourselves away, held fast by some power that seems incomprehensible to us. Sometimes, however, we become fully aware and realize that error as well as truth can move and spur us on to action.
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Whatever Nature undertakes, she can only accomplish it in a sequence. She never makes a leap.
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The world is so great and rich, and life so full of variety, that you can never lack occasions for poems.
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Certain flaws are necessary for the whole. It would seem strange if old friends lacked certain quirks.
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Painting predicates what man wants to see, and what man ought to see, not what he ordinarily sees.
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Progress has not followed a straight ascending line, but a spiral with rhythms of progress and retrogression, of evolution and dissolution.