Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
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I have possessed that heart, that noble soul, in whose presence I seemed to be more than I really was, because I was all that I could be.
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We don't get to know anything but what we love.
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Give shape, artist! don't talk! Your poem be but a breath.
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Conscience is the virtue of the observers not the agents of action.
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To be loved for what one is, that is the greatest exception. The great majority love in others only what they lend him; their own selves, their version of him.
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He is a man whom it is impossible to please, because he is never pleased with himself.
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Science has been seriously retarded by the study of what is not worth knowing and of what is not knowable.
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The Woman-Soul leadeth us upward and on!
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All theory, my friend, is grey, But green is life's glad golden tree.
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The assault of our enemies is not part of our life; it is only part of our experience; we throw it off and guard ourselves against it as against frost, storm, rain, hail, or any other of the external evils which may be expected to happen.
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So long as you live and work, you will be misunderstood; to that you must resign yourself once and for all. Be silent!
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The world remains ever the same.
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You can put up with everything in this world except not with a long stretch of beautiful days.
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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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It is the color closest to light. In its utmost purity it always implies the nature of brightness and has a cheerful, serene, gently stimulating character. Hence, experience teaches us that yellow makes a thoroughly warm and comforting impression.
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It is bad governments, not bad people, who cause revolutions.
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Lay hold of life with both hands, whenever thou mayest seize it, it is interesting.
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As for what I have done as a poet, I take no pride in whatever. Excellent poets have lived at the same time with me, poets more excellent lived before me, and others will come after me. But that in my country I am the only person who knows the truth in the difficult science of colors-of that, I say, I am not a little proud, and here have a consciousness of superiority to many.
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Whether one show one's self a man of genius in science or compose a song, the only point is, whether the thought, the discovery, the deed, is living and can live on.
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Art is constitutive-the artist determines beauty. He does not take it over.
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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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Age merely shows what children we remain.
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Man's highest merit always is, as much as possible, to rule external circumstances and as little as possible to let himself be ruled by them.