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 natural to man to regard himself as the object of the creation, and to think of all things in relation to himself, and the degree in which they can serve and be useful to him.
But what is your duty? What the day demands. [Ger., Was aber ist deine Pflicht? Die Forderung des Tages.]
Duty is the demand of the hour.
All sects seem to me to be right in what they assert, and wrong in what they deny.
No, no! The devil is an egotist, And is not apt, without why or wherefore, "For God's sake," others to assist. [Ger., Nein, nein! Der Teufel ist ein Egoist Und thut nicht leicht um Gottes Willen, Was einem Andern nutzlich ist.]
Whatever we think out, whatever we take in hand to do, should be perfectly and finally finished, that the world, if it must alter, will only have to spoil it; we have then nothing to do but unite the severed, to recollect and restore the dismembered.
I reverence the individual who understands distinctly what he wishes; who unweariedly advances, who knows the means conducive to his object, and can seize and use them.
It matters little whether a man be mathematically or philologically or artistically cultivated, so he be but cultivated.
Every individual who is not creative has a negative, narrow, exclusive taste and succeeds in depriving creative being of its energy and life.
As to the value of conversions, God alone can judge. God alone can know how wide are the steps which the soul has to take before it can approach to a community with Him, to the dwelling of the perfect, or to the intercourse and friendship of higher natures.
Reasonable men are the best dictionaries of conversation.
Alas, that we should be so unwilling to listen to the still and holy yearnings of the heart! A god whispers quite softly in our breast, softly yet audibly; telling us what we ought to seek and what to shun.
Man cannot persist long in a conscious state, he must throw himself back into the unconscious, for his root lives there.
The miller imagines that the corn grows only to make his mill turn.