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

More quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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Strike the dog dead, it's but a critic!
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Mediocrity has no greater consolation than in the thought that genius is not immortal.
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Our modern wars make many unhappy while they last and none happy when they are over.
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The most damaging prejudice consists of banning any kind of investigation of nature.
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Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words.
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Boldness has power, magic and genius in it.
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What is the destiny of man, but to fill up the measure of his sufferings, and to drink his allotted cup of bitterness?
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True works of art contain their own theory and give us the measurement according to which we should judge them.
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Man believes himself always greater than he is, and is esteemed less than he is worth.
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Were not the eye made to receive the rays of the sun, it could not behold the sun if the peculiar power of God lay not in us, how could the godlike charm us?
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It is related of an Englishman that he hanged himself to avoid the daily task of dressing and undressing.
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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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Architecture is crystallized music.
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What we don't understand we don't possess.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Talents are nurtured best in solitude, But character on life's tempestuous seas!
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Character - in things great and small - is indicated when a man (or person) pursues with sustained follow-through what he feels himself capable of doing.
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What is important in life is life, and not the result of life.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The highest goal that man can achieve is amazement.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Does not man lack the force at the very point where he needs it most? And when he soars upward in joy, or sinks down in suffering, is not checked in both, is he not returned again to the dull, cold sphere of awareness, just when he was longing to lose himself in the fullness of the infinite.
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If we take people only as they are, then we make them worse if we treat them as if they were what they should be, then we bring them to where they can be brought.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe