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Mountains cannot be surmounted except by winding paths.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
O'er all the hilltopsIs quiet now,In all the treetopsHearest thouHardly a breath;The birds are asleep in the trees:Wait; soon like theseThou too shalt rest.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Happy the man who early learns the wide chasm that lies between his wishes and his powers.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
Every spoken word arouses our self-will.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
The greatest genius will not be worth much if he pretends to draw exclusively from his own resources.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
One is never satisfied with a portrait of a person that one knows.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
I have often felt a bitter sorrow at the thought of the German people, which is so estimable in the individual and so wretched in the generality. A comparison of the German people with other peoples arouses a painful feeling, which I try to overcome in every possible way.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
Say what we may of the inadequacy of translation, yet the work is and will always be one of the weightiest and worthiest undertakings in the general concerns of the world.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The brilliant passes, like the dew at morn; The true endures, for ages yet unborn.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
My son, whoever wishes to keep a secret, must hide from us that he possesses one. Self complaisance over the concealed destroys its concealment.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
Lord Byron is only great as a poet; as soon as he reflects he is a child.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
The close and thoughtful observer more and more learns to recognize his limitations. He realizes that with the steady growth of knowledge more and more new problems keep on emerging.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
It is with art as with love: How can a man of the world,with all his distractions, keep the inwardness which an artist must possess if he hopes to attain perfection? That inwardness which the spectator must share if he is to understand the work as the artist wishes and hopes... Believe me, talents are like virtues; either you must love them for their own sake or renounce them altogether. And they are only recognized and rewarded when we have practised them in secret, like a dangerous mystery."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Ich bin der Geist der stets verneint.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
Once a man's thirty, he's already old,He is indeed as good as dead.It's best to kill him right away.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
Und doch sehr oft, wenn wir uns von dem Beabsichtigten für ewig getrennt sehen, haben wir schon auf unserm Wege irgend ein anderes Wünschenswerthe gefunden, etwas uns Gemäßes, mit dem uns zu begnügen wir eigentlich geboren sind.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
Mysterious in the light of day, nature retains her veil, despite our clamours: That which she does not willingly display cannot be wrenched from her with levers, screws and hammers.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
One lives but once in the world.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
Here too it’s masquerade, I find: As everywhere, the dance of mind. I grasped a lovely masked procession, And caught things from a horror show… I’d gladly settle for a false impression, If it would last a little longer, though.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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To measure up to all that is demanded of him, a man must overestimate his capacities.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
People are so constituted that everybody would rather undertake what they see others do, whether they have an aptitude for it or not.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
I have learned much from disease which life could have never taught me anywhere else.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
Die Welt ist so leer, wenn man nur Berge, Flüsse und Städte darin denkt, aber hie und da jemand zu wissen, der mit uns übereinstimmt, mit dem wir auch stillschweigend fortleben, das macht uns dieses Erdenrund erst zu einem bewohnten Garten.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe