Quote

Freedom consists not in refusing to recognize anything above us, but in respecting something which is above us for by respecting it, we raise ourselves to it, and, by our very acknowledgment, prove that we bear within ourselves what is higher, and are worthy to be on a level with it.

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
Within
Bear
Freedom
Recognize
Anything
Worthy
Acknowledgment
Something
Bears
Refusing
Prove
Respecting
Level
Consists
Higher
Raise
Levels
Raises

More quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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I can promise to be upright, but not to be without bias. [Ger., Aufrichtig zu sein kann ich versprechen unparteiisch zu sein aber nicht.]
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves, too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never have otherwise occurred...unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Only the heart without a stain knows perfect ease. [Ger., Ganz unbefleckt geniesst sich nur das Herz.]
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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What is part of you, you cannot get rid of, even if you were to throw it away.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Destiny grants us our wishes, but in its own way, in order to give us something beyond our wishes.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Piety is not an end, but a means: a means of attaining the highest culture by the purest tranquility of soul. Hence it may be observed that those who set up piety as an end and object are mostly hypocrites.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Hypotheses are only the pieces of scaffolding which are erected round a building during the course of construction, and which are taken away as soon as the edifice is completed.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The mind is found most acute and most uneasy in the morning. Uneasiness is, indeed, a species of sagacity - a passive sagacity. Fools are never uneasy.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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A wife is a gift bestowed upon a man to reconcile him to the loss of paradise.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Whoever gives himself up to solitude, Ah! he is soon alone.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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And future deeds crowded round us as the countless stars in the night. [Ger., Und kunftige Thaten drangen wie die Sterne Rings um uns her unzahlig aus der Nacht.]
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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If you start to think of your physical and moral condition, you usually find that you are sick.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Everyone only hears what he understands.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Alas, that we should be so unwilling to listen to the still and holy yearnings of the heart! A god whispers quite softly in our breast, softly yet audibly telling us what we ought to seek and what to shun.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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He who is wise puts aside all claims which may dissipate his attention, and confining himself to one branch excels in that.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Woe to falsehood! it affords no relief to the breast, like truth it gives us no comfort, pains him who forges it, and like an arrow directed by a god flies back and wounds the archer.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Never by reflection, but only by doing is self- knowledge possible to one.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Thou tremblest before anticipated ills, and still bemoanest what thou never losest.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Our hands we open of our own free will, and the good flies, which we can never recall.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe