Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann WolfgangGoethetə/; German: ; 28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German writer and statesman. His body of work includes epic and lyric poetry written in a variety of metres and styles; prose and verse dramas; memoirs; an autobiography; literary and aesthetic criticism; treatises on botany, anatomy, and colour; and four novels. In addition, numerous literary and scientific fragments, more than 10,000 letters, and nearly 3,000 drawings by him exist...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth28 August 1749
CountryGermany
It is so hard that one cannot really have confidence in doctors and yet cannot do without them.
If everyone sweeps before his own front door, then the street is clean.
Tell me with whom you associate, and I will tell you who you are.
War is in truth a disease in which the juices that serve health and maintenance are used for the sole purpose of nourishing something foreign, something at odds with nature.
Stood I, O Nature! man alone in thee, Then were it worth one's while a man to be.
Rash combat oft immortalizes man; if he should fall, he is renowned in song; but after-ages reckon not the ceaseless tears which the forsaken woman sheds. Poets tell us not of the many nights consumed in weeping, or of the dreary days wherein her anguished soul vainly yearns to call her loved one back.
Each has his own happiness in his hands, as the artist handles the rude clay he seeks to reshape it into a figure; yet it is the same with this art as with all others: only the capacity for it is innate; the art itself must be learned and painstakingly practiced.
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.
Oh happy he who still can hope in our day to breathe the truth while plunged in seas of error! What we don't know is really what we need, and what we know is of no use to us whatever!
The formation of one's character ought to be everyone's chief aim.
Enjoy when you can, and endure when you must.
The human mind will not be confined to any limits.
Talk well of the absent whenever you have the opportunity.
One always has time enough, if one will apply it well.