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If any man wish to write in a clear style, let him be first clear in his thoughts and if any would write in a noble style, let him first possess a noble soul.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Age: 82 †
Born: 1749
Born: August 22
Died: 1832
Died: March 22
Aphorist
Art Critic
Art Theorist
Autobiographer
Botanist
Composer
Diarist
Diplomat
Jurist
Lawyer
Librarian
Librettist
Literary
Frankfurt/Main
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Goethe
goethe
johann wolfgang von goethe
joh. wolfg. von goethe
j. w. von goethe
Soul
Possess
Firsts
Noble
First
Thoughts
Writing
Motivational
Would
Style
Men
Clear
Wish
Write

More quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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Several classical sayings that one likes to repeat had quite a different meaning from the ones later times attributed to them.
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We all walk in mysteries. We are surrounded by an atmosphere about which we still know nothing at all.
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Why should we not recognize in the lightning, the thunder, and the storm wind, the approach of an overwhelming Power, and in the scent of flowers and the gently rustling zephyr the presence of a Being full of love?
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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It is bad governments, not bad people, who cause revolutions.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Only by joy and sorrow does a person know anything about themselves and their destiny. They learn what to do and what to avoid.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The most foolish of all errors is for clever young men to believe that they forfeit their originality in recognizing a truth which has already been recognized by others.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The further one advances in experience, the closer one comes to the unfathomable the more one learns to utilize experience, the more one recognizes that the unfathomable is of no practical value.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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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.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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There are few who have at once thought and capacity for action. Thought expands, but lames action animates, but narrows.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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For I have been a man, and that means to have been a fighter.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The man of understanding finds everything laughable.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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I am amazed to see how deliberately I have entangled myself step by step. To have seen my position so clearly, and yet to have acted so like a child!
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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It is a mistake for a taciturn, serious-minded woman to marry a jovial man, but not for a serious-minded man to marry a lighthearted woman.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The clever reader who is capable or reading between these lines what does not stand written in them but is nevertheless implied will be able to form some conception.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Let us live in as small a circle as we will, we are either debtors or creditors before we have had time to look around.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Normally, the sciences distance themselves from life and the return to it via a detour.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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If I love you, what business is it of yours?
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Toleration ought in reality to be merely a transitory mood. It must lead to recognition. To tolerate is to affront.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity transient. To act is easy, to think is hard to act according to our thought is troublesome. Every beginning is cheerful: the threshold is the place of expectation.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe