Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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There is a great difference, whether the poet seeks the particular for the sake of the general or sees the general in the particular. From the former procedure there ensues allegory, in which the particular serves only as illustration, as example of the general. The latter procedure, however, is genuinely the nature of poetry; it expresses something particular, without thinking of the general or pointing to it.
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If we could do away with death, we wouldn't object; to do away with capital punishment will be more difficult. Were that to happen, we would reinstate it from time to time.
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If we are out of synch with ourselves, everything is out of synch for us.
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Thank God when He lays a burden on thee, and thank Him when He takes it off.
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Wherever a man may happen to turn, whatever a man may undertake, he will always end up by returning to that path which nature has marked out for him.
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The mob has nothing to lose, everything to gain.
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The spirit from which we act is the principal matter.
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Know thyself? If I knew myself I would run away.
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Men are much more apt to agree in what they do than in what they think.
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There is no greater consolation for mediocrity than that the genius is not immortal.
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Neither art thou the man to catch the fiend and hold him!
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We cannot and must not get rid of nor deny our characteristics. But we can give them shape and direction.
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I have heard myself accused of being an opponent, an enemy of mathematics, which no one can value more highly than I, for it accomplishes the very thing whose achievement has been denied me.
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A man would create another man if one did not already exist, but a woman might live an eternity without even thinking of reproducing her own sex.
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Over all the mountain tops is peace. In all treetops you perceive scarcely a breath. The little birds in the forest are silent. Wait then; soon, you too, will have peace.
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A great scholar is seldom a great philosopher.
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Oh, happy he who still hopes he can emerge from Error's boundless sea! - Faust.
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Nothing is good for a nation but that which arises from its own core and its own general wants, without apish imitation of another.
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Even dirt glitters when the sun is shining upon it.
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The philosophers must station themselves in the middle.
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How circumscribed is woman's destiny!
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You must be either the servant or the master, the hammer or the anvil.
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Men in a state of nature, uncivilized nations, children, have a great fondness for colors in their utmost brightness, and especially for yellow-red.
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He who is and remains true to himself and to others has the most attractive quality of the greatest talent.