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
Win for yourself that which your fathers have won.
Most pioneers are at the mercy of doubt at the beginning, whether of their worth, of their theories, or of the whole enigmatic field in which they labour.
I will say with Lorenzo de Medici that those who do not hope for another life are always dead to this one.
I have often reaped what others have sowed. My work is the work of a collective being that bears the name Goethe.
When one is polite in German, one lies.
It is working within limits that the craftsman reveals himself.
In art it's not the thinking that does the job, but making.
To know where a thing is we must have found it.
To the world you might be one person, but to one person, you might be the world. Kindness is the golden chain by which our world is bound together.
Self knowledge is best learned not by contemplation, but by action.
No limit, no definition, may restrict the range or depth of the human spirit's passage into its own secrets or the world's.
If you live criticizing people, you won't have time to love them.
The happiest man is the one who finds happiness at home.
The experiences show us just as we are; they make us see our own defects.