Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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One always has time enough, if one will apply it well.
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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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Every reader, if he has a strong mind, reads himself into the book, and amalgamates his thoughts with those of the author.
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As soon as any one belongs to a narrow creed in science, every unprejudiced and true perception is gone.
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Character - in things great and small - is indicated when a man (or person) pursues with sustained follow-through what he feels himself capable of doing.
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Wealth and speed are what the world admires, what each pursues. Railways, express mails, steamships and every possible facility for communications are the achievement in which the civilized world view and revels, only to languish in mediocrity by that very fact. Indeed, the effect of this diffusion is to spread the culture of the mediocre.
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Human life runs its course in the metamorphosis between receiving and giving.
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We should know mankind better if we were not so anxious to resemble one another.
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The day is of infinite length for him who knows how to appreciate and use it.
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Impotent hatred is the most horrible of all emotions; one should hate nobody whom one cannot destroy.
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If you live criticizing people, you won't have time to love them.
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There is no greater consolation for mediocrity than that the genius is not immortal.
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There is no trifling with nature; it is always true, grave, and severe; it is always in the light, and the faults and errors fall to our share. It defies incompetency, but reveals its secrets to the competent, the truthful, and the pure.
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Habit is the most imperious of all masters.
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I wish the crowd to feel itself well treated, Especially since it lives and lets me live.
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I wish the stage were as narrow as the wire of a tighrope dancer so that no incompetent would dare step upon it.
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It is easier to perceive error than to find truth, for the former lies on the surface and is easily seen, while the latter lies in the depth, where few are willing to search for it.
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Translators are like busy match-makers: they sing the praises of some half-veiled beauty, and extol her charms, and arouse an irresistible longing for the original.
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Some of our weaknesses are born in us, others are the result of education; it is a question which of the two gives us most trouble.
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People of uncommon abilities generally fall into eccentricities when their sphere of life is not adequate to their abilities.
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I make presents to the mother but think of the daughter.
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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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In all things, to serve from the lowest station upwards is necessary. To restrict yourself to a trade is best. For the narrow mind, whatever he attempts is still a trade; for the higher, an art; and the highest in doing one thing does all, or, to speak less paradoxically, in the one thing which he does rightly he sees the likeness of all that is done rightly.
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The eye doesn't see any shapes, it sees only what is differentiated through light and dark or through colors.