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If the world does improve on the whole, yet youth must always begin anew, and go through the stages of culture from the beginning.

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
World
Beginning
Youth
Stage
Culture
Doe
Anew
Whole
Stages
Must
Improve
Always
Begin

More quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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It is the fortunate who should extol fortune. [Ger., Das Gluck erhebe billig der Begluckte.]
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As our inclinations, so our opinions.
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Culture which smooth the whole world licks, Also unto the devil sticks.
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Thus I reel from desire to fulfillment and in fulfillment languish for desire.
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The force of a language does not consist of rejecting what is foreign but of swallowing it.
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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.
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Give me the benefit of your convictions, if you have any but keep your doubts to yourself, for I have enough of my own.
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When two men quarrel, who owns the cooler head is the more to blame.
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Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one's thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.
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At the end of life thoughts hitherto impossible come to the collected mind, like good spirits which let themselves down from the shining heights of the past.
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I come more and more to the conclusion that one must take the side of the minority which is always the more intelligent one.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Vanity is a desire of personal glory, the wish to be appreciated, honoured, and run after, not because of one's personal qualities, merits, and achievements, but because of one's individual existence. At best, therefore, it is a frivolous beauty whim it befits.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Only that type of story deserves to be called moral that shows us that one has the power within oneself to act, out of the conviction that there is something better, even against one's own inclination.
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One cannot develop taste from what is of average quality but only from the very best.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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I respect the man who knows distinctly what he wants.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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They should be ashamed of themselves, all these sober people!
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Everything in the world may be endured, except only a succession of prosperous days. [Ger., Alles in der Welt lasst sich ertragen, Nur nicht eine Reihe von schonen Tagen.]
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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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Do not, I beg you, look for anything behind phenomena. They are themselves their own lesson.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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It used to happen, and still happens, to me to take no pleasure in a work of art at the first sight of it, because it is too much for me but if I suspect any merit in it, I try to get at it and then I never fail to make the most gratifying discoveries--to find new qualities in the work itself and new faculties in myself.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe