Quote

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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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
Objects
Purest
Highest
Hypocrite
Means
Piety
Culture
Tranquility
Ends
Observed
May
Hence
Soul
Mostly
Hypocrites
Mean
Object
Attaining

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A man's shortcomings are taken from his epoch his virtues and greatness belong to himself.
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What is the true test of character unless it be its progressive development in the bustle and turmoil, in the action and reaction of daily life.
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All perishable is but an allegory.
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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.
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He who does not stretch himself according to the coverlet finds his feet uncovered.
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Every bird has its decoy, and every man is led and misled in his own peculiar way.
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Only law can give us freedom.
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Several classical sayings that one likes to repeat had quite a different meaning from the ones later times attributed to them.
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Man is not born to solve the problem of the universe, but to find out what he has to do and to restrain himself within the limits of his comprehension.
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What by a straight path cannot be reached by crooked ways is never won.
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Tolerance should, strictly speaking, be only a passing mood it ought to lead to acknowledgment and appreciation. To tolerate a person is to affront him.
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The eternal feminine doth draw us upward. [Ger., Das Ewig-Weibliche zieht uns hinan.]
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What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.
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To make a young couple love each other, it is only necessary to oppose and separate them.
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There is no patriotic art and no patriotic science.
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Let's plunge ourselves into the roar of time, the whirl of accident may pain and pleasure, success and failure, shift as they will -- it's only action that can make a man.
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To quit smoking, you must first want to quit, but then you must also do the quitting
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There is nothing more frightful than for a teacher to know only what his scholars are intended to know.
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