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
This is what they all come to who exclusively harp on experience. They do not stop to consider that experience is only one half of experience.
The absence of temptation is the absence of virtue.
Should I not be proud, when for twenty years I have had to admit to myself that the great Newton and all the mathematicians and noble calculators along with him were involved in a decisive error with respect to the doctrine of color, and that I among millions was the only one who knew what was right in this great subject of nature?
Men in a state of nature, uncivilized nations, children, have a great fondness for colors in their utmost brightness, and especially for yellow-red.
For I have been a man, and that means to have been a fighter.
Enthusiasm is of the greatest value, so long as we are not carried away by it.
A phenomenon like Mozart remains an inexplicable thing.
Higher aims are in themselves more valuable, even if unfulfilled, than lower ones quite attained.
That which thy fathers have bequeathed to thee, earn it anew if thou wouldst possess it.
Let us seek to fathom those things that are fathomable and reserve those things which are unfathomable for reverence in quietude.
The important thing is not to know more than all men, but to know more at each moment than any particular man.
If it is the greatest truth that you seek, the plants can direct you.
Wishes are premonitions of abilities.
What sort of God would it be, who only pushed from without.