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
Poetry is the universal possession of mankind, revealing itself everywhere, and at all times, in hundreds and hundreds of men.
If a poet would work politically, he must give himself up to a party; and so soon as he does that, he is lost as a poet.
At bottom, no real object is unpoetical, if the poet knows how to use it properly.
Once you have missed the first buttonhole, you'll never manage to button up.
People always fancy that we must become old to become wise; but, in truth, as years advance, it is hard to keep ourselves as wise as we were.
Nothing is good for a nation but that which arises from its own core and its own general wants, without apish imitation of another.
Names are but noise and smoke, Obscuring heavenly light.
The spirit from which we act is the principal matter.
The few of understanding, vision rare, Who veiled not from the herd their hearts, but tried, Poor generous fools, to lay their feelings bare, Them have men always burnt and crucified.
A wife is a gift bestowed upon a man to reconcile him to the loss of paradise.
A noble man is led by woman's gentle words.
It is natural to man to regard himself as the final cause of creation.
There speaks the man of truly noble ways, Who will not listen to the words of praise. In modesty averse, and with deaf ears, He acts as though the others were his peers.
We don't get to know anything but what we love.