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Words are good, but there is something better. The best cannot be explained by words. The spirit in which we act is the chief matter. Action can only be only understood and represented by the spirit.

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
Spirit
Cannot
Represented
Best
Explained
Better
Chief
Matter
Chiefs
Something
Understood
Good
Words
Action

More quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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He who possesses art and science has religion he who does not possess them, needs religion.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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One lives but once in the world.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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No prudent antagonist thinks light of his adversaries.
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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The one who always strives, That one can be redeemed.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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To tremble before anticipated evils is to bemoan what thou hast never lost.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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In all times it is only individuals that have advanced science, not the age.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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It is sometimes essential for a husband and a wife to quarrel - they get to know each other better.
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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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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The angles even Draw strength from gazing on its glance, Though none its meaning fathom may The world's unwither'd countenance Is bright as at creation's day.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Age does not make us childish, as some say it finds us true children.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The mortal race is far too weak not to grow dizzy on unwonted brights. [Ger., Das sterbliche Geschlecht ist viel zu schwach In ungewohnter Hohe nicht zu schwindeln.]
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Give shape, artist! don't talk! Your poem be but a breath.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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For usually people resist as long as they can to dismiss the fool they harbor in their bosom, they resist to confess a major mistake or to admit a truth that makes them despair.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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We can always redeem the man who aspires and strives.
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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A man may twist as he pleases, and do what he pleases, but he inevitably comes back to the track to which nature has destined him.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Lose the day loitering, 'twill be the same story To-morrow, and the next more dilatory, For indecision brings its own delays, And days are lost lamenting o'er lost days. Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute! What you can do, or think you can, begin it! Only engage, and then the mind grows heated Begin it, and the work will be completed.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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One is never satisfied with a portrait of persons whom one knows. That is why I have always pitied portraitists. One demands so seldom of others the impossible, but demands just that of the portraitists.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe