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Writing is busy idleness.

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
Idleness
Busy
Writing

More quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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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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Names are but noise and smoke, Obscuring heavenly light.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Hypotheses are the scaffolds which are erected in front of a building and removedd when the building is completed. They are indispensable to the worker but the worker must not mistake the scaffolding for the building.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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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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He who does not know foreign languages does not know anything about his own.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Divide and rule, a sound motto. Unite and lead, a better one.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Every step of life shows much caution is required.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Precaution is better than cure.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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It is not enough to take steps which may someday lead to a goal each step must be itself a goal and a step likewise.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Sowing is not as difficult as reaping.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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If you wish a wise answer, you must put a rational question.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Ingratitude is always a kind of weakness. I have never known men of ability to be ungrateful.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Literature is a fragment of a fragment. Of all that ever happened, or has been said, but a fraction has been written and of this but little is extant.
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 that is noble is in itself of a quiet nature, and appears to sleep until it is aroused and summoned forth by contrast.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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What in us the women leave uncultivated, children cultivate when we retain them near us.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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We blame equally him who is too proud to put a proper value on his own merit and him who prizes too highly his spurious worth.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Men are so constituted that every one undertakes what he sees another successful in, whether he has aptitude for it or not.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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When translating one must proceed up to the intranslatable only then one becomes aware of the foreign nation and the foreign tongue.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Life seems so vulgar, so easily content with the commonplace things of every day, and yet it always nurses and cherishes certain higher claims in secret, and looks about for the means of satisfying them.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe