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
Austere perseverance, hash and continuous... rarely fails of its purpose, for its silent power grows irresistible greater with time.
Everything we do has a result. But that which is right and prudent does not always lead to good, nor the contrary to what is bad.
I respect the man who knows distinctly what he wants.
Man's highest merit always is, as much as possible, to rule external circumstances and as little as possible to let himself be ruled by them.
What then is your duty? What the day demands.
Tolerance comes of age. I see no fault committed that I myself could not have committed at some time or other.
Woe to him who would ascribe something like reason to Chance, and make a religion of surrendering to it.
Theories are usually the over-hasty efforts of an impatient understanding that would gladly be rid of phenomena, and so puts in their place pictures, notions, nay, often mere words.
In every artist there is a touch of audacity without which no talent is conceivable.
People may live as much retired from the world as they please; but sooner or later, before they are aware, they will find themselves debtor or creditor to somebody.
To understand one thing well is better than understanding many things by halves.
The art of living rightly is like all arts; it must be learned and practiced with incessant care.
How can we know ourselves? Never by reflection, but only through action. Begin at once to do your duty and immediately you will know what is inside you.
Wherever a man may happen to turn, whatever a man may undertake, he will always end up by returning to that path which nature has marked out for him.