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The misfortune in the state is, that nobody can enjoy life in peace, but that everybody must govern and in art, that nobody will enjoy what has been produced, but that every one wants to reproduce on his own account.

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
Life
Everybody
Misfortune
State
Govern
Peace
Misfortunes
Enjoy
Produced
Art
Account
States
Accounts
Must
Nobody
Every
Wants
Reproduce

More quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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In happy ignorance, I sighed for a world I did not know, where I hoped to find every pleasure and enjoyment which my heart could desire and now, on my return from that wide world... how many disappointed hopes and unsuccessful plans have I brought back!
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Kindness is the golden thread that holds society together.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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It is better to do the smallest thing in the world than to hold half an hour to be too small a thing.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Hypotheses are the scaffolds which are erected in front of a building and removedd when the building is completed. They are indispensable to the worker but the worker must not mistake the scaffolding for the building.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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It is said that no man is a hero to his valet. That is because a hero can be recognized only by a hero.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The eye doesn't see any shapes, it sees only what is differentiated through light and dark or through colors.
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.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Before you can do something, you must first be something.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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To live within limits. To want one thing. Or a few things very much and love them dearly. Cling to them, survey them from every angle. Become one with them - that is what makes the poet, the artist, the human being.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Zweck sein selbst ist jegliches Tier. Each animal is an end in itself.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Passions are defects or virtues in the highest power.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity transient. To act is easy, to think is hard to act according to our thought is troublesome. Every beginning is cheerful: the threshold is the place of expectation.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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There is nothing more fearful than imagination without taste. [Ger., Es ist nichts furchterlicher als Einbildungskraft ohne Geschmack.]
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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All perishable is but an allegory.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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To measure up to all that is demanded of him, a man must overestimate his capacities
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The close and thoughtful observer more and more learns to recognize his limitations. He realizes that with the steady growth of knowledge more and more new problems keep on emerging.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The further one advances in experience, the closer one comes to the unfathomable the more one learns to utilize experience, the more one recognizes that the unfathomable is of no practical value.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Those only obtain love, for the most part, who seek it not.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Care is taken that trees do not grow into the sky.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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When scholars study a thing, they strive to kill it first, if it's alive then they have the parts and the'be lost the whole, for the link that's missing was the living soul.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe