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Life seems so vulgar, so easily content with the commonplace things of every day, and yet it always nurses and cherishes certain higher claims in secret, and looks about for the means of satisfying them.

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
Seems
Satisfying
Looks
Content
Mean
Claims
Cherishes
Every
Easily
Nurses
Always
Higher
Commonplace
Things
Secret
Vulgar
Life
Means
Nurse
Certain
Cherish

More quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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True religion teaches us to reverence what is under us, to recognize humility and poverty, and, despite mockery and disgrace, wretchedness, suffering, and death, as things divine.
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As soon as you are in a social setting, you better take away the key to the lock of your heart and pocket it those who leave thekey in the lock are fools.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Let us live in as small a circle as we will, we are either debtors or creditors before we have had time to look around.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The bed of flowers Loosens amain, The beauteous snowdrops Droop o'er the plain. The crocus opens Its glowing bud, Like emeralds others, Others, like blood. With saucy gesture Primroses flare, And roguish violets, Hidden with care And whatsoever There stirs and strives, The Spring's contented, If works and thrives.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Nothing is worse than active ignorance.
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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Everything that frees our spirit without giving us control of ourselves is ruinous.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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There are two things parents should give their children roots and wings. Roots to give them bearing and a sense of belonging, but also wings to help free them from constraints and prejudices and give them other ways to travel (or rather, to fly).
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves, too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never have otherwise occurred...unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The fine emotions whence our lives we mold Lie in the earthly tumult dumb and cold.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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For what one has in black and white, One can carry home in comfort.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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If you call a thing bad you do little, if you call a thing good you do much
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Men in a state of nature, uncivilized nations, children, have a great fondness for colors in their utmost brightness, and especially for yellow-red.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The whole art of living consists in giving up existence in order to exist.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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When young, one is confident to be able to build palaces for mankind, but when the time comes one has one's hands full just to be able to remove their trash.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Oral delivery aims at persuasion and making the listener believe they are converted. Few persons are capable of being convinced the majority allow themselves to be persuaded.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The theater has often been at variance with the pulpit they ought not to quarrel. How much is it to be wished that in both the celebration of nature and of God were intrusted to none but men of noble minds.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Sameness leaves us in peace but it is contradiction that makes us productive.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Don't give us your doubts, gives us your certainties, for we have doubts enough of our own.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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People are so constituted that everybody would rather undertake what they see others do, whether they have an aptitude for it or not.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe