Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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Hypotheses are lullabies for teachers to sing their students to sleep.
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Where a man has a passion for meditating without the capacity of thinking, a particular idea fixes itself fast, and soon creates a mental disease.
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Most pioneers are at the mercy of doubt at the beginning, whether of their worth, of their theories, or of the whole enigmatic field in which they labour.
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Conscience is the virtue of the observers not the agents of action.
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Those that are firm in their will mold the world to themselves.
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What is important in life is life, and not the result of life.
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The people rate strength before everything.
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Create, artist, do not talk.
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The most original of authors are not so because they advance what is new, but more because they know how to say something, as if it had never been said before.
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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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Everything has been thought of before, but the problem is to think of it again.
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There is nothing more fearful than imagination without taste. [Ger., Es ist nichts furchterlicher als Einbildungskraft ohne Geschmack.]
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Paternity is based anyhow only upon conviction: I am convinced, therefore, I am the father.
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The important thing is not to know more than all men, but to know more at each moment than any particular man.
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A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude.
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I will say with Lorenzo de Medici that those who do not hope for another life are always dead to this one.
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The artist has a twofold relation to nature; he is at once her master and her slave.
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It is better for you to suffer an injustice than for the world to be without law. Therefore, let everyone submit to the law.
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On all the peaks lies peace.
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A man must cling to the belief that the incomprehensible is comprehensible; otherwise he would not try to fathom it.
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They should be ashamed of themselves, all these sober people!
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The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving.
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But the valid issue is the extent to which man knows how to form and master the material at his command.
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Don't feel guilty if you don't immediately love your stepchildren as you do your own, or as much as you think you should. Everyoneneeds time to adjust to the new family, adults included. There is no such thing as an "instant parent." Actually, no concrete object lies outside of the poetic sphere as long as the poet knows how to use the object properly.