Quote

A life without love, without the presence of the beloved, is nothing but a mere magic-lantern show. We draw out slide after slide, swiftly tiring of each, and pushing it back to make haste for the next.

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
Back
Draw
Lanterns
Without
Presence
Swiftly
Nothing
Draws
Slide
Make
Mere
Slides
Love
Magic
Haste
Life
Show
Tire
Next
Pushing
Lantern
Shows
Beloved
Tiring

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The Bible grows more beautiful, as we grow in our understanding of it.
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You will find the most pronounced hatred of other nations on the lowest cultural levels. There is, though, a level where the hatred disappears completely and where one so to speak stands above the nations and where one experiences fortune or misfortune of a neighboring country as if they had happened to one's own.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Nothing is worth more than this day.
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Modern poets mix too much water with their ink. [Ger., Neuere Poeten thun viel Wasser in die Tinte.]
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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.
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Happy the man who early learns the wide chasm that lies between his wishes and his powers.
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It is said that no man is a hero to his valet. That is because a hero can be recognized only by a hero.
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English plays, Atrocious in content, Absurd in form, Objectionable in action, Execrable EnglishTheatre.
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So much has already been said about Shakespeare that there doesn't seem to be anything more to say yet it is the quality of the spirit that it forever stimulates the spirit.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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There are two things children should get from their parents: roots and wings.
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We are shaped and fashioned by what we love
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The use of a thing is only a part of its significance. To know anything thoroughly, to have the full command of it in all its appliances, we must study it on its own account, independently of any special application.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The art of living rightly is like all arts it must be learned and practiced with incessant care.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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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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Not art and science only, but patience will be required for the work.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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How can you come to know yourself? Never by thinking, always by doing. Try to do your duty, and you'll know right away what you amount to.
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Everything factual is, in a sense, theory. The blue of the sky exhibits the basic laws of chromatics. There is no sense in looking for something behind phenomena: they are theory.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Legislators and revolutionaries who promise both equality and liberty are visionaries and charlatans.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Love grants in a moment What toil can hardly achieve in an age. [Ger., In einem Augenblick gewahrt die Liebe Was Muhe kaum in langer Zeit erreicht.]
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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True religion teaches us to reverence what is under us, to recognize humility and poverty, and, despite mockery and disgrace, wretchedness, suffering, and death, as things divine.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe