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When we treat man as he is, we make him worse than he is when we treat him as if he already were what he potentially could be, we make him what he should be.

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
Men
Treat
Treats
Worse
Already
Inspiration
Peace
Inspirational
Make
Potentially

More quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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The whole art of living consists in giving up existence in order to exist.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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If society gives up the right to impose the death penalty, then self-help will appear again and personal vendettas will be around the corner.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Try novelties for salesman's bait, For novelty wins everyone.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The coward only threatens when he is safe.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Art is constitutive-the artist determines beauty. He does not take it over.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Life seems so vulgar, so easily content with the commonplace things of every day, and yet it always nurses and cherishes certain higher claims in secret, and looks about for the means of satisfying them.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The present moment is a powerful goddess.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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I am fully convinced that the soul is indestructible, and its activity will continue through eternity.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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What right those who govern have to govern they don't question, they just govern. Whether the people have a right to depose them that doesn't concern them. All they are concerned with is that the people will not be tempted to depose them.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The miller believes that all the wheat grows so that his mill keeps running.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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As soon as any one belongs to a narrow creed in science, every unprejudiced and true perception is gone.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Energy will do anything that can be done in the world and no talents, no circumstances, no opportunities will make a two-legged animal a man without it.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Wind is the loving Wooer of waters Wind blends together Billows all-foaming. Spirit of man, Thou art like unto water! Fortune of man, Thou art like unto wind!
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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We blame equally him who is too proud to put a proper value on his own merit and him who prizes too highly his spurious worth.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Everyone holds his fortune in his own hands, like a sculptor the raw material he will fashion into a figure. But it's the same with that type of artistic activity as with all others: We are merely born with the capability to do it. The Skill to mold the material into what we want must be learned and attentively cultivated.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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As our inclinations, so our opinions.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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That which thy fathers have bequeathed to thee, earn it anew if thou wouldst possess it.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Once you have missed the first buttonhole, you'll never manage to button up.
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.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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What a day it is when we must envy the men in their graves.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe