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
If one has not read the newspapers for some months and then reads them all together, one sees, as one never saw before, how much time is wasted with this kind of literature.
One is led astray alike by sympathy and coldness, by praise and by blame
Give me the benefit of your convictions, if you have any; but keep your doubts to yourself, for I have enough of my own.
The best genius is that which absorbs and assimilates everything without doing the least violence to its fundamental destiny.
If you inquire what people are like here, I must answer, "The same as everywhere."
I always seek the good that is in people and leave the bad to Him who made mankind and knows how to round off the corners.
The realization of the self is only possible if one is productive, if one can give birth to one's own potentialities.
Anecdotes and maxims are rich treasures to the man of the world, for he knows how to introduce the former at fit place in conversation.
He who wishes to exert a useful influence must be careful to insult nothing. Let him not be troubled by what seems absurd, but concentrate his energies to the creation of what is good. He must not demolish, but build. He must raise temples where mankind may come and partake of the purest pleasure.
The phrases that men hear or repeat continually, end by becoming convictions and ossify the organs of intelligence.
On every mountain height is rest.
Where there are no women there are no good manners
To measure up to all that is demanded of him, a man must overestimate his capacities
Everything great and intelligent is in the minority