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Humor is one of the elements of genius--admirable as an adjunct but as soon as it becomes dominant, only a surrogate for genius.

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
Soon
Elements
Genius
Humor
Adjunct
Becomes
Surrogate
Surrogates
Admirable
Dominant

More quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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Certain books seem to be written, not that we might learn from them, but in order that we might see how much the author knows.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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He only earns his freedom and his life Who takes them every day by storm.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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When two people are really happy about one another one can generally assume they are mistaken.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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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?
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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They should be ashamed of themselves, all these sober people!
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Alas! how much there is in education, and in our social institutions, to prepare us and our children for insanity.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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What government is the best? That which teaches us to govern ourselves. [Ger., Welche Regierung die beste sei? Diejenige die uns lehrt uns selbst zu regieren.]
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Ah, how often I've cursed those foolish pages, That showed my youthful sufferings to everyone! If Werther had been my brother, and I'd killed him, His sad ghost could hardly have persecuted me more.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Everything is both simpler than we can imagine and more entangled than we can conceive.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Nature! We are enveloped and embraced by her, incapable of emerging from her and incapable of entering her more deeply. Unbidden and unwarned, she receives us into the circuits of her dance, drifting onward with us herself, until we grow tired and drop from her arms.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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All that is transitory is but a metaphor.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Let there be truth between us.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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I come more and more to the conclusion that one must take the side of the minority which is always the more intelligent one.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Hypotheses are only the pieces of scaffolding which are erected round a building during the course of construction, and which are taken away as soon as the edifice is completed.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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two souls, alas, are housed within my breast, and each will wrestle for the mastery there.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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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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Whatever necessity lays upon thee, endure whatever she commands, do.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Energy will do anything that can be done in the world and no talents, no circumstances, no opportunities will make a two-legged animal a man without it.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Alas, that we should be so unwilling to listen to the still and holy yearnings of the heart! A god whispers quite softly in our breast, softly yet audibly telling us what we ought to seek and what to shun.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe