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Vanity is a desire of personal glory, the wish to be appreciated, honoured, and run after, not because of one's personal qualities, merits, and achievements, but because of one's individual existence. At best, therefore, it is a frivolous beauty whim it befits.

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
Existence
Appreciated
Beauty
Qualities
Quality
Merit
Befits
Wish
Vanity
Honoured
Desire
Achievement
Merits
Individual
Glory
Frivolous
Running
Therefore
Whim
Best
Personal
Achievements

More quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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Who can think wise or stupid things at all that were not thought already in the past.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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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.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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When the healthy nature of man acts as a whole, when he feels himself to be in the world as in a great, beautiful, noble, and valued whole, when harmonious ease affords him a pure and free delight, then the universe, if it could experience itself, would exult, as having attained its goal, and admire the climax of its own becoming and essence.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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One needs only to get old to become milder I don't see anyone make a mistake I hadn't also made.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Originality provokes originality.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Every step of life shows much caution is required.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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He who knows no foreign languages knows nothing of his own.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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What people call the spirit of the times is mostly their own spirit in which the times mirror themselves.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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One criticizes the English for carrying their teapots wherever they go, even lugging them up Mount Etna. But doesn't every nationhave its teapot, in which, even when traveling, it brews the dried bundles of herbs brought from home?
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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There is nothing by which men display their character so much as in what they consider ridiculous... Fools and sensible men are equally innocuous. It is in the half fools and the half wise that the great danger lies.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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There is nothing new on earth / For a person who lives long and experiences much. / In my years of youthful wandering / I have seen crystallized people.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Mastery is often taken for egotism.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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True happiness springs from moderation.
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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Some of our weaknesses are born in us, others are the result of education it is a question which of the two gives us most trouble.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The works of Lavoisier and his associates operated upon many of us at that time like the Sun's rising after a night of moonshine: but Chemistry is now betrothed to the Mathematics, and is in consequence grown somewhat shy of her former admirers.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The history of mankind is his character.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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A word spoken is a terrible thing when it suddenly utters what the heart has long allowed.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Many hammer all over the wall and believe that with each blow they hit the nail on the head.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe