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The bad thing is that thinking about thought doesn't help at all one has to have it from nature so that the good ideas appear before us like free children of God calling to us: Here we are.

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
Like
Doesn
Nature
Thought
Thoughtful
Ideas
Appear
Children
Calling
Thing
Help
Good
Free
Thinking
Helping

More quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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What is now the foliage moving? Air is still, and hush'd the breeze, Sultriness, this fullness loving, Through the thicket, from the trees. Now the eye at once gleams brightly, See! the infant band with mirth Moves and dances nimbly, lightly, As the morning gave it birth, Flutt'ring two and two o'er earth.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Let mental culture go on advancing, let the natural sciences progress in even greater extent and depth, and the human mind widen itself as much as it desires: beyond the elevation and moral culture of Christianity, as it shines forth in the Gospels, it will not go.
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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The best slave is the one who thinks he is free.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Woe to falsehood! it affords no relief to the breast, like truth it gives us no comfort, pains him who forges it, and like an arrow directed by a god flies back and wounds the archer.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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It is said, that no one is a hero to their butler. The reason is, that it requires a hero to recognize a hero. The butler, however, will probably know well how to estimate his equals.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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One must be something, in order to do something.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Oh how sweet it is to hear one's own convictions from another's lips.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Few people have the imagination for reality.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Napoleon affords us an example of the danger of elevating one's self to the absolute, and sacrificing everything to the carrying out of an idea.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Accepting good advice means nothing other than to strengthen one's own ability.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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It is a very hard and troublesome thing to dispose of whole, half, and quarter-mistakes to sift them and assign the portion of truth to its proper place.
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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Blood is a juice of rarest quality. [Ger., Blut ist ein ganz beondrer Saft.]
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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You are certainly wrong to compare suicide ... with great accomplishments, since it cannot be considered as anything but a weakness. After all, it is easier to die than to endure a harrowing life with fortitude.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The modern age has a false sense of superiority, because of the great mass of data at its disposal. But the valid criterion of distinction is rather the extent to which man knows how to form and master the material at his command.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Noble be man, Helpful and good! For that alone Sets him apart From every other creature On earth.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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I hold to faith in the divine love - which, so many years ago for a brief moment in a little corner of the earth, walked about as a man bearing the name of Jesus Christ - as the foundation on which alone my happiness rests.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Objects in pictures should so be arranged as by their very position to tell their own story.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe