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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.

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
Thinking
Duty
Amount
Away
Come
Right
Trying
Always
Never

More quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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Clever people are always the best conversations lexicon.
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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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An angel! Nonsense! Everybody so describes his mistress and yet I find it impossible to tell you how perfect she is, or why she is so perfect: suffice it to say she has captivated all my senses.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The style of writing required in the great world is distinguished by a free and daring grace, a careless security, a fine and sharp polish, a delicate and perfect taste while that fitted for the people is characterized by a vigorous natural fulness, a profound depth of feeling, and an engaging naivete.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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To be sure, a good work of art can and will have moral consequences, but to demand of the artists moral intentions, means ruiningtheir craft.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Modern poets mix too much water with their ink. [Ger., Neuere Poeten thun viel Wasser in die Tinte.]
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Misunderstandings and neglect occasion more mischief in the world than malice and wickedness.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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No two men see the world exactly alike, and different temperaments will apply in different ways a principle that they both acknowledge.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The greatest evil that can befall man is that he should come to think ill of himself.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Lamps make oil-spots and candles need snuffing it is only the light of heaven that shines pure and leaves no stain.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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If you are to accomplish all that one demands of you, you must overestimate your own worth.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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It is not given to us to grasp the truth, which is identical with the divine, directly. We perceive it only in reflection, in example and symbol, in singular and related appearances. It meets us as a kind of life which is incomprehensible to us, and yet we cannot free ourselves from the desire to comprehend it.
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
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Writing is busy idleness.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Seldom in the business and transactions of ordinary life, do we find the sympathy we want.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The Woman-Soul leadeth us upward and on!
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Aptitudes are assumed, they should become accomplishments. That is the purpose of all education.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The century is advanced, but every individual begins afresh.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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He is the happiest man who can see the connection between the end and the beginning of life.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe