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The force of a language does not consist of rejecting what is foreign but of swallowing it.

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
Swallowing
Rejecting
Consist
Foreign
Force
Language
Doe

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Confronted by outstanding merit, there is no way of saving one's ego except by love
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Love, whose power youth feels, is not suitable for the elderly, just as little as anything that presupposes productivity. It is rare that productivity lasts through the years.
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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.
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Each indecision brings its own delays and days are lost lamenting over lost days... What you can do or think you can do, begin it. For boldness has magic, power, and genius in it.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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God could cause us considerable embarrassment by revealing all the secrets of nature to us: we should not know what to do for sheer apathy and boredom.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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National literature does not mean much these days now is the age of world literature, and every one must contribute to hasten thearrival of that age.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Say what we may of the inadequacy of translation, yet the work is and will always be one of the weightiest and worthiest undertakings in the general concerns of the world.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Man usually believes, if only words he hears, That also with them goes material for thinking. [Ger., Gewohnlich glaubt der Mensch, wenn er nur Worte hort, Es musse sich dabei doch auch was denken.]
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Death is a commingling of eternity with time in the death of a good man, eternity is seen looking through time.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Oh God, how do the world and heavens confine themselves, when our hearts tremble in their own barriers!
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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My days are as happy as those reserved by God for his elect and whatever be my fate hereafter, I can never say that I have not tasted joy— the purest joy of life.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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All one needs to do is declare oneself free and one will immediately feel dependent. If you dare to declare yourself dependent, you feel independent.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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All understanding begins in wonder!
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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The mind is found most acute and most uneasy in the morning. Uneasiness is, indeed, a species of sagacity - a passive sagacity. Fools are never uneasy.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Here too it’s masquerade, I find: As everywhere, the dance of mind. I grasped a lovely masked procession, And caught things from a horror show… I’d gladly settle for a false impression, If it would last a little longer, though.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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To appreciate the noble is a gain which can never be torn from us.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The suffering may be moral or physical and in my opinion it is just as absurd to call a man a coward who destroys himself, as to call a man a coward who dies of a malignant fever.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Happiness is a ball after which we run wherever it rolls, and we push it with our feet when it stops.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Generosity wins favour for everyone, especially when it is accompanied by modesty.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe