Quote

To me the external existence of my soul is proved from my idea of activity. If I work incessantly until my death, nature will give me another form of existence when the present can no longer sustain my spirit.

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
Giving
Death
Sustain
Work
Spirit
Proved
Another
External
Nature
Activity
Form
Longer
Give
Present
Soul
Existence
Ideas
Idea
Incessantly

More quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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So then the year is repeating its old story again. We are come once more, thank God! to its most charming chapter. The violets and the Mayflowers are as its inscriptions or vignettes. It always makes a pleasant impression on us, when we open again at these pages of the book of life.
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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One lives but once in the world.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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To think is easy. To act is hard. But the hardest thing in the world is to act in accordance with your thinking.
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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We are our own aptest deceiver.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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This is the true measure of love, When we believe that we alone can love, That no one could ever have loved so before us, And that no one will ever love in the same way after us.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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To be sure, a good work of art can and will have moral consequences, but to demand of the artists moral intentions, means ruiningtheir craft.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Originality provokes originality.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Of the book of books most wondrous is the tender book of love.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Of the truly creative no one is ever master it must be left to go its own way.
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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I wait for the morning of my tears
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The art of governing is a great metier, requiring the whole man, and it is therefore not well for a ruler to have too strong tendencies for other affairs.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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It is not always needful for truth to take a definite shape it is enough if it hovers about us like a spirit and produces harmony if it is wafted through the air like the sound of a bell, grave and kindly.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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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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What do people mean when they talk about unhappiness? It is not so much unhappiness as impatience that from time to time possesses men, and then they choose to call themselves miserable.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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My peace is gone, my heart is heavy. [Ger., Meine Ruh ist hin, Mein Herz ist schwer.]
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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In politics people throw themselves, as on a sickbed, from one side to the other in the belief they will lie more comfortably.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe