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
America, you have it better than our continent, the old one.
All perishable is but an allegory.
The true, prescriptive artist strives after artistic truth; the lawless artist, following blind instinct, after an appearance of naturalness. The one leads to the highest peaks of art, the other to its lowest depths.
The soul of man is like to water; from Heaven it cometh, to Heaven it riseth And then returning to earth, forever alternating.
The thinking person has the strange characteristic to like to create a fantasy in the place of the unsolved problem, a fantasy that stays with the person even when the problem has been solved and truth made its appearance.
The world only goes forward because of those who oppose it.
This being busied with thoughts of immortality is for the noble classes and especially for women with nothing to do. A solid person, though, someone who already intends to be something worthy here, and who therefore has to strive daily, has to struggle and work, gives the world to come a rest.
The web of this world is woven of Necessity and Chance. Woe to him who has accustomed himself from his youth up to find something necessary in what is capricious, and who would ascribe something like reason to Chance and make a religion of surrendering to it.
We can stand only a certain amount of unhappiness; anything beyond that annihilates us or passes us by, leaving us apathethetic.
All our knowledge is symbolic.
Deny yourself! You must deny yourself! That is the song that never ends.
He who is wise puts aside all claims which may dissipate his attention, and confining himself to one branch excels in that.
I come more and more to the conclusion that one must take the side of the minority which is always the more intelligent one.
To venture an opinion is like moving a piece at chess: it may be taken, but it forms the beginning of a game that is won.