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A genuine work of art usually displeases at first sight, as it suggests a deficiency in the spectator.

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
Usually
Art
Displeases
Firsts
Spectator
First
Deficiency
Work
Suggests
Spectators
Genuine
Sight

More quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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Nothing is more disgusting than the majority: because it consists of a few powerful predecessors, of rogues who adapt themselves, of weak who assimilate themselves, and the masses who imitate without knowing at all what they want.
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All our knowledge is symbolic.
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Be above it! Make the world serve your purpose, but do not serve it.
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Great passions are incurable diseases.
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On every mountain height is rest.
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Why look for conspiracy when stupidity can explain so much
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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.
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Wisdom is found only in truth.
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The most original of authors are not so because they advance what is new, but more because they know how to say something, as if it had never been said before.
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There are men who never err, because they never propose anything rational.
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A phenomenon like Mozart remains an inexplicable thing.
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God help us -- for art is long, and life so short.
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People are always talking about originality, but what do they mean? As soon as we are born, the world begins to work upon us, and this goes on to the end.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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I curse all negative purism that tells me not to use a word from another language that either expresses something that my own language cannot or does that in a more delicate manner.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Everything that frees our spirit without giving us control of ourselves is ruinous.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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I believe in God and in nature and in the triumph of good over evil.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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While man's desires and aspirations stir he cannot choose but err.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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For I have been a man, and that means to have been a fighter.
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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Superstition belongs to the essence of mankind and takes refuge, when one thinks one has suppressed it completely, in the strangest nooks and crannies once it is safely ensconced there, it suddenly reappears.
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