Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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Everything perfect in its kind has to transcend its own kind, it must become something different and incomparable. In some notes the nightingale is still a bird; then it rises above its class and seems to suggest to every winged creature what singing is truly like.
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Man is a simple being, and however rich, varied, and unfathomable he may be, the cycle of his situations is soon run through.
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The happiest man is the one who finds happiness at home.
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He who does not see the whole world in his friends, does not deserve that the world should hear of him.
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It is a misfortune to pass at once from observation to conclusion, and to regard both as of equal value; but it befalls many a student.
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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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To be sure, we have inherited abilities, but our development we owe to thousands of influences coming from the world around us from which we appropriate what we can and what is suitable to us.
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Someone criticized an elderly man for wooing young women. He replied that that was the only way to rejuvenation, which was, afterall, everybody's wish.
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Manners form the great charm of women.
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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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All one needs to do is declare oneself free and one will immediately feel dependent. If you dare to declare yourself dependent, you feel independent.
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We're really up against it, we poor women: A bachelor's a hard thing to convert.
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He who cannot love must learn to flatter.
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Great thoughts and a pure heart, that is what we should ask from God.
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He who does not expect a million readers should not write a line.
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Love of truth shows itself in this, that a man knows how to find and value the good in everything.
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Generosity wins favour for everyone, especially when it is accompanied by modesty.
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Unlimited activity, of whatever kind, must end in bankruptcy.
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No sacred fane requires us to submit to insult.
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Cursed Mammon be, when he with treasures To restless action spurs our fate! Cursed when for soft, indulgent leisures, He lays for us the pillows straight.
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Every day I observe more and more the folly of judging of others by ourselves; and I have so much trouble with myself, and my own heart is in such constant agitation, that I am well content to let others pursue their own course, if they only allow me the same privilege.
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I make presents to the mother but think of the daughter.
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Personality is everything in art and poetry.
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Animals, we have been told, are taught by their organs. Yes, I would add, and so are men, but men have this further advantage that they can also teach their organs in return.