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
You acquire a language most readily in the country where it is spoken; you study mineralogy best among miners; and so with everything else.
Because everyone uses language to talk, everyone thinks he can talk about language.
He who knows no foreign languages knows nothing of his own.
The sun had, in the meanwhile, sunk behind the Ettersberg. We felt in the wood the chill of the evening, and drove all the quicker to Wiemar, and to Goethe's house. Goethe urged me to go in with him for a while, and I did so. He was in an extremely engaging mood. He talked a great deal about his theory of colors, and of his obstinate opponents; remarking that he was sure that he had done something in this science.
Human life-everybody lives it, but only to a few is it known.
If a man knows where to get good advice, it is as though he could supply it himself.
Where a man has a passion for meditating without the capacity of thinking, a particular idea fixes itself fast, and soon creates a mental disease.
The soul is indestructible and its activity will continue through eternity. It is like the sun, which, to our eyes, seems to set at night; but it has in reality only gone to diffuse its light elsewhere.
The greatest genius will not be worth much if he pretends to draw exclusively from his own resources
Who is sure of their own motives can in confidence advance or retreat.
The most original of authors are not so because they advance what is new, but more because they know how to say something, as if it had never been said before.
Don't say that you want to give, but go ahead and give! You'll never catch up with a mere hope.
To have more, you must first be more.
Confronted by outstanding merit, there is no way of saving one's ego except by love