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
We love a girl for very different qualities than understanding. We love her for her beauty, her youth, her mirth, her confidingness, her character, with its faults, caprices and God knows what other inexpressible charms; but we do not love her understanding.
The beautiful is a phenomenon which is never apparent of itself, but is reflected in a thousand different works of the creator.
Progress has not followed a straight ascending line, but a spiral with rhythms of progress and retrogression, of evolution and dissolution.
Those who make use of devotion as a means and end generally are hypocrites.
The clever reader who is capable or reading between these lines what does not stand written in them but is nevertheless implied will be able to form some conception.
Oblivion is full of people who allow the opinions of others to overrule their belief in themselves.
The happy do not believe in miracles.
Talent develops in quiet, alone; character is sharpened in the torrent of the world.
Perfection is the measure of heaven, and the wish to be perfect the measure of man.
Create, artist, do not talk.
The artist has a twofold relation to nature; he is at once her master and her slave.
Collectors are happy people.
The century is advanced, but every individual begins afresh.
There are two things parents should give their children roots and wings. Roots to give them bearing and a sense of belonging, but also wings to help free them from constraints and prejudices and give them other ways to travel (or rather, to fly).