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Happy the man who early learns the wide chasm that lies between his wishes and his powers.

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
Early
Lies
Lying
Chasm
Happy
Chasms
Wish
Learns
Men
Wishes
Powers
Wide

More quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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There is nothing outside of us that is not at the same time in us, and as the external world has its colors the eye, too, has colors.
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The rainbow mirrors human aims and action. Think, and more clearly wilt thou grasp it, seeing Life is but light in many-hued reflection.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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What sort of faults may we retain, nay, even cherish in ourselves? Those faults which are rather pleasant than offensive to others.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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To have more, you must first be more.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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People should talk less and draw more. Personally, I would like to renounce speech altogether and, like organic nature, communicate everything I have to say visually.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The art of governing is a great metier, requiring the whole man, and it is therefore not well for a ruler to have too strong tendencies for other affairs.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Since you know me and my destiny only too well, you probably also know what attracts me to all unfortunate people.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The most happy man is he who knows how to bring into relation the end and beginning of his life.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Viewed from the summit of reason, all life looks like a malignant disease and the world like a madhouse.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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If you are convinced of a matter, you must take sides or you don't deserve to succeed.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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A vi'let on the meadow grew, That no one saw, that no one knew, It was a modest flower. A shepherdess pass'd by that way-- Light footed, pretty and so gay That way she came, Softly warbling forth her lay.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The greatest piece of folly is that every man thinks himself compelled to hand down what people think they have known.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Ye great teachers: listen to what you say!
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The misfortune in the state is, that nobody can enjoy life in peace, but that everybody must govern and in art, that nobody will enjoy what has been produced, but that every one wants to reproduce on his own account.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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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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I examine my own being, and find there a world, but a world rather of imagination and dim desires, than of distinctness and living power. Then everything swims before my senses, and I smile and dream while pursuing my way through the world.
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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He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The artist may be well advised to keep his work to himself till it is completed, because no one can readily help him or advise him with it... but the scientist is wiser not to withhold a single finding or a single conjecture from publicity.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Translators can be considered as busy matchmakers who praise as extremely desirable a half-veiled beauty. They arouse an irresistible yearning for the original.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe