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Mannerism is always longing to have done, and has no true enjoyment in work. A genuine, really great talent, on the other hand, has its greatest happiness in execution.

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
Hands
Longing
Done
Genuine
Great
Talent
Work
Style
Really
Greatest
Mannerism
Always
Hand
Mannerisms
Happiness
Execution
True
Enjoyment

More quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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Does not man lack the force at the very point where he needs it most? And when he soars upward in joy, or sinks down in suffering, is not checked in both, is he not returned again to the dull, cold sphere of awareness, just when he was longing to lose himself in the fullness of the infinite.
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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For usually people resist as long as they can to dismiss the fool they harbor in their bosom, they resist to confess a major mistake or to admit a truth that makes them despair.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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To venture an opinion is like moving a piece at chess: it may be taken, but it forms the beginning of a game that is won.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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It used to happen, and still happens, to me to take no pleasure in a work of art at the first sight of it, because it is too much for me but if I suspect any merit in it, I try to get at it and then I never fail to make the most gratifying discoveries--to find new qualities in the work itself and new faculties in myself.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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This is the highest wisdom that I own freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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I had toward the poetic art a peculiar relation which was only practical after I had cherished in my mind for a long time a subject which possessed me, a model which inspired me, a predecessor who attracted me, until at length, after I had molded it
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The best benefit we derive from history is the enthusiasm it excites.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Manners form the great charm of women.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The spectacle of Nature is always new, for she is always renewing the spectators. Life is her most exquisite invention and death is her expert contrivance to get plenty of life.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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With the growth of knowledge our ideas must from time to time be organized afresh. The change takes place usually in accordance with new maxims as they arise, but it always remains provisional.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The style of an author is a faithful copy of his mind.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The history of mankind is his character.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Error is to truth as sleep is to waking. I have observed that one turns, as if refreshed, from error back to truth.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Nothing should be valued higher than the value of the day.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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For just when ideas fail, a word comes in to save the situation.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Painting predicates what man wants to see, and what man ought to see, not what he ordinarily sees.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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I always seek the good that is in people and leave the bad to Him who made mankind and knows how to round off the corners.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Lose the day loitering, 'twill be the same story To-morrow, and the next more dilatory, For indecision brings its own delays, And days are lost lamenting o'er lost days. Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute! What you can do, or think you can, begin it! Only engage, and then the mind grows heated Begin it, and the work will be completed.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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If you wish to advance into the infinite, explore the finite in all directions.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe